Harry Potter and the Tooth Fairy
by Neale
Summary: Another AU HP story, Six year old Harry has his teeth smashed in by his cousin and escapes with magic, only to arrive in the middle of the street right in front of the Grangers' car. As usual this is primarily a Harry/Hermione story because Hermione isn't an idiot.
1. Harry Potter and the Tooth Fairy

**Another AU Harry Potter story, six year old Harry is found on the street by the Grangers after he had his teeth smashed in with a cricket bat.**

 **It won't be sunshine and lollypops for anyone who doesn't do the right thing by Harry.**

 **As usual I'm sticking with the earlier notion that Charlus was Harry's grandfather because I like the name better, and it gives him a direct link to the Black family. Harry's proper name is _Henry_ James, as he's named after his great grandfather, and the Potter family has had a major role in Magical Britain since its origins. Another unusual thing about Harry is that he remembers _everything_ back to when he was a baby almost perfectly, which will prove to be great for some and disastrous for others.**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's gritty fiction.**

Roger caught Jean's eye and shook his head in good natured exasperation at the constant stream of questions coming from their daughter in the back seat. Hermione was seven, but while she read and reasoned at a level at least a few years older and talking to her was often like dealing with a young adult, when she got the bit between her teeth and started asking questions like this there was no way to get a word in _or_ shut her up, or so he thought, but just at that moment she interrupted herself by screaming. _**"Daddy watch out!"**_

Luckily Roger had excellent reactions because what she was warning him about was the small boy who had just appeared out of thin air in the street, right in front of their car! Roger immediately wrenched the wheel over and stood on the brakes but even so the car only _just_ missed the boy, in fact Roger would have sworn that he saw the baggy, oversized clothes he was wearing touching the side of the car as it skimmed past him.

He and Jean leapt out of the car as soon as it stopped moving to frantically check on the boy, but for the most part he seemed OK…. for the _most_ part, one area where he most definitely _wasn't_ OK was his mouth, because some bastard had smashed all of the little tyke's teeth in, it looked like he'd been hit in the mouth with a club or something. Roger and Jean couldn't understand how he wasn't screaming in pain from what had been done to him, but he was acting as if he was used to that sort of pain, which was chilling in and of itself.

They were only a couple of kilometres away from their dental practice, so they decided that the best thing to do would be to take him straight there, try to do something about his mouth and call the police, because it was fairly obvious that what happened to him was no accident, someone had deliberately hit him in the mouth quite viciously. For all the little tyke only looked four or five at most though, he seemed quite mature and had no trouble understanding what they were asking him, so he just climbed into the back seat beside Hermione when Jean opened the door for him.

Hermione went to say something when the boy climbed in with blood staining the front of his shirt from his ruined mouth but she caught the look from her mother as she was strapping him in and stayed quiet, taking his hand instead. For all her anguish about what had been done to the little boy, Jean noted the fact that he didn't try to take his hand back and in fact actually seemed to like Hermione holding his hand.

At the practice, they cleaned him up so that they could determine just how bad the damage was and what they could do for him. Jean couldn't help it, she burst into tears when they had a good look at what had been done to him, because the only thing that could be done for him would be to remove what was left of his broken teeth and fit him with a complete set of dentures, because he only had a couple of his back teeth left, the rest of them had been smashed out.

Jean almost had a heart attack when a soft voice said. "Please don't cry lady, I didn't mean to upset you, honest!" because that wasn't Roger or Hermione's voice, and there was no way that poor child could have spoken with his mouth smashed up like that.

Roger got almost as much of a shock as Jean did when the boy spoke, so he only just managed to catch her when she turned to look at the boy and fainted clean away. After he'd settled her safely into the chair he turned to the boy himself and froze in shock, because his teeth were perfect now!

Once he'd calmed down, he confirmed the seemingly impossible visible evidence of the reappearing teeth with the boy's permission and his eyes hadn't deceived him, the boy now had a full set of perfect teeth where ten or fifteen minutes ago all of his teeth had been smashed in. At least they had a name for him now, Harry, Harry Potter.

* * *

As Harry was trying to explain how his teeth had suddenly reappeared and how he had suddenly appeared in the street right in front of their car, even though he really had no idea himself, a rather strange, haggard looking man burst into their reception area. The man was sniffing the air madly, and he suddenly stopped and whispered " _Harry!_ " joyously, which relieved a little bit of Roger's worries about this lunatic at least because he apparently knew their guest, and if he was reading the man's expression correctly, he had great affection for the boy.

Roger's worry returned when the man pushed past him into the examination room where Harry was, but Harry's happy "Unca Mooey?" gave him a measure of comfort that the boy wasn't in danger from him.

When Jean and Hermione joined them, the man introduced himself as Remus Lupin, a friend of Harry's parents, though he also went by 'Mooney', and 'Unca Mooey" when Harry was little. Roger noted that whenever Hermione was close to the man, he was sniffing at her, and it wasn't long before Roger had had enough and challenged him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, sniffing at my daughter?"

Remus apologised, then hesitated, weighing the Secrecy act against these parents' legitimate need to know what was going on with their daughter, eventually deciding that they would know soon enough and what's more they had a _right_ to know so he looked Roger in the eye. "Do you know that your daughter is Magical?"

That had Roger and Jean staring at him, dumbfounded again, but as Roger opened his mouth to say that that was crazy, Jean shook her head. "No Rog, it's actually the only thing that can properly explain what's been happening with Hermione for years now, you know as well as I do that she's been floating her toys and books across the room when she wanted them and the like..." she paused as she looked at Harry "But how could Harry suddenly appear out of nowhere in front of our car, and miraculously heal himself?"

That required an explanation for Remus, but while he could explain away appearing out of nowhere away as something called apparition, he mused that he'd never heard of children doing it spontaneously like that, and that you needed to really know your destination to apparate to it.

Remus' obvious shock when Harry said that he'd done this… apparition? That morning at school, jumping to the top of a building to get away from Dudley and his friends because they were trying to hurt him, and that he'd seen the park that he appeared outside on the tellie last month told the Grangers that this was a rather special ability the boy had, and they remembered seeing something about a festival at the park as well, now that he mentioned it.

The matter of Harry healing himself was more complicated. Roger had used their camcorder to record the damage done to Harry's mouth because they were certain that he'd need re-constructive surgery to repair that damage, until they had a good look at it and Jean burst into tears because they couldn't see any way that that much damage _could_ be repaired, so they played the tape for Remus.

The way that Remus was growling when he saw what had been done to Harry frightened the hell out of the Grangers, and his explanation that he was a werewolf and the wolf came out when he was as angry as seeing that had made him didn't really do anything to reassure them, but they understood that his anger was directed at whoever did this to Harry, _not_ at them, and instinctively knew that the man wasn't a danger to them. Hearing Harry say that his much bigger, older cousin had done the damage by hitting him in the mouth with a cricket bat at his uncle's urging for being a freak and getting him called out of work to come to the school saw a resurgence of the growling, but Roger was joining in now. The explanation finished with how he'd desperately wanted to be somewhere away from them so that they couldn't hurt him any more, and then he suddenly appeared in the street in front of the Grangers' car.

Harry's explanation that his mouth had suddenly healed itself because he couldn't talk with it broken up the way it was and he wanted the nice lady to stop crying shocked them, but Jean hugged him to within an inch of his life for that. Roger could see that Remus had an idea about this from the musing look he was giving Harry so he asked him if he knew how this miracle had come about.

Remus shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't know for sure, but I am aware of a rather rare magical talent which could explain it, well I can think of two types of magical talent which could have done this but something makes me think that the rarer one is what he used. There's actually someone in Harry's extended family who has this talent and I'd like to talk to her before I say anything about it…. Harry?"

Harry looked at him. "Yes Uncle Mooney?"

"Do you remember ever having unexpectedly changing the way you looked, and not being able to explain it?"

Harry thought about the question. "Does growing my hair back overnight count?"

"It might, what happened?"

"Aunt Petunia cut off all my hair except for a bit at the front that she left to cover up my scar one day because she was angry that my hair was always messy. It looked really awful and I knew that everyone was going to laugh at me when I went to school the next day so I was sent to my cupboard crying, but when I woke up in the morning my hair had all grown back, is that what you meant Uncle Mooney?"

Remus smiled with a gleam in his eye as he answered. "Yes, that is exactly what I meant Harry." He looked at Roger. "With any luck Harry's cousin… she's his third or fourth cousin on his father's side, will have come home from school for the Christmas break so that we can arrange for him to meet with her without others knowing about it. She will hopefully be able to think up some tests to determine whether he has the same talent as her or not, but I also want to talk to her parents about what we can do to protect Harry, because they're about the closest relations he has left after those bastards who did that to him and if I recall correctly, Ted, Nymphadora's father, may also be the Potter family's solicitor."

* * *

Roger and Jean hugged each other, relieved that someone was actually looking out for this darling boy, and asked if they could be there to see what happened. This actually worked quite well for Remus' plans, because he wanted Ted and Andi to come and see the tape of what had been done to Harry, so he got their permission to bring the Tonks to the practice and apparated away. It was around here that Roger and Jean suddenly realised that they hadn't contacted the Police as they'd originally planned, but the fact that Harry had miraculously healed himself like that would make it rather difficult to explain, so they decided to wait and discuss it when Remus returned.

Twenty minutes later Remus was back with a couple a little older than the Grangers and their daughter, who was in her early teens. The Grangers didn't miss the fact that Harry apparently recognised and liked these people.

They quickly promised to call Nymphadora _Dora_ to appease her (Roger and Jean were amused by that, but had to admit that they did think it cruel to give a child a name like that), and after fifteen minutes or so Dora pronounced that she was certain that Harry was indeed a metamorphmagus like her. The Tonks were impressed when they heard that Harry had successfully apparated twice that day, and that the second time was to somewhere that he'd only seen on the television, but they were enraged when Roger played the tape to show what had been done to him and heard how his so-called family were treating him.

While Ted was going over the options about what to do with Harry, everyone, the Tonks, the Grangers and Remus alike, were adamant that Harry was _n_ _ever_ going back to that place.

They were quite certain that the great Albus Dumbledore would soon be searching for Harry, seeing as he was the one who placed Harry with those bastards, but luckily they were nowhere near Little Whinging, where Harry's Aunt and Uncle lived, and other than the automatic record that had been made of Hermione's birth as a Muggleborn witch, the Magical world should know nothing about the Grangers. The Grangers were all happy for Harry to stay with them so he could be kept hidden from Dumbledore and the Magical world, and this would give Ted the space he needed to deal with the legal issues without showing their hand.

They did have to make one visit as soon as possible though, to Gringotts to get the goblins to accept who Harry was, because they'd need both access to the Potter money and the goblins' assistance if they were to beat Dumbledore. They were hoping that Dora would be able to walk Harry through the steps needed to use this metamorph talent change his appearance enough to let him safely get through Diagon Alley without being recognised, as that also had the advantage of being the only type of disguise that _wouldn't_ be stripped away by the goblins' wards when they went past the general banking floor in Gringotts.

The goblins appeared strangely eager to see Harry, to see all of them actually, because they requested that Remus, the Tonks and the Grangers all come with him the following morning. It was agreed that Harry would go with Dora, as a brother and sister who had a distinct resemblance to his mother, Hermione would be going with the Ted and Andi because Ted's hair was close enough to Hermione's for them to be taken as family, while Roger and Jean would go with Remus, as he was the most capable protector if it came to that.

The three groups managed to make it into Gringotts without getting a second look from anyone, but the looks Ted and Andi gave each other when their escort was told to take them directly to Director Gringott's office said that this goblin was someone of great note, though the fact that he shared the bank's name sort of gave that away.

* * *

Gringott the Third's office was obviously meant to intimidate and impress, but the imposing goblin seated behind the expansive granite desk was clearly amused by the fact that the young boy had obviously recognised him, and so was looking around with interest rather than fear and awe. Ted and Andi looked at each other again when Gringott respectfully requested Harry to return to his natural appearance, and Ted could see that the Grangers and Remus were getting miffed about being out of the loop so he leant over and whispered. "Director Gringott _orders_ people Roger, he doesn't ask!"

That was when they discovered that goblins had excellent hearing, or at least Gringott did, as he responded to that. "I am expected to be heavy handed with most people to keep up appearances in my position as the Leader of the Goblin Nation of Britain and Director of all the Gringotts Banks Mister Tonks, however Lord Potter… or more accurately _Duke_ Potter, is not most people. As the leaders of the Druids and Wizards Councils, and the Wizengamot up until their role was usurped by Albus Dumbledore in the Nineteen Forties, the Duke's family have been the Fae peoples' protectors and mentors in Britain for over two thousand years, so he is very precious to us. We have asked you all here today to express our gratitude to you for saving him and hopefully make agreements for whatever will be required to keep our young Lord safe and happy, and so that we can ensure that he has the training necessary to keep him safe, and to allow him to assume his proper place in the Magical world when the time comes. We would also like to include Miss Tonks and Miss Granger in this training to ensure their safety, and because I see in them qualities that Lord Potter will need to help him achieve what he must."

Aside from Harry and Hermione, the humans in the room were all staring at Gringott in shock, because even Roger and Jean grasped the importance of what he'd just said, that Harry, this quiet, unassuming little boy they'd discovered the day before, was effectively royalty in the magical world. This in turn begged a question, why had Albus Dumbledore, the self proclaimed 'Leader of the Light', hidden him away from everyone who cared about him with those abusive monsters…. and for that matter, why was he so determined to control him?…. Actually the second question pretty much answered the first, because he'd obviously put him with those animals to make sure that he wouldn't become a threat to the hold _he_ had over the Wizarding world.

When Harry changed into his natural state as Gringott had requested, they saw what a truly frightening sight a furious goblin was, because Gringott's eyes were flashing with rage and he had to make an obvious effort to stop himself reaching for the battleaxe hanging from his chair. He barked some orders in Goblin and Harry was taken away to be properly examined by the goblins' healers.

* * *

While Harry was being seen to by the healers, Gringott filled the others in on Harry's background, Remus, Andi and Ted knew parts of this story but even they had trouble grasping the whole story.

"Young Harry's family rose to a position of power among the early Druids of the British Isles two and a half thousand years ago because their bloodlines have been mixed with the _Tuath Dé_ and the _Fomoiri,_ the high elves and the high goblins, this made them much more magically powerful than other Druids so they were accepted as the leaders of the Druids. In the late Sixth Century, their magical bloodline became Noble in Owain mab Urien after Urien Rheged took Morgan Le Fey as his Queen and as their eldest son, Owain became the next King of Rheged. In the Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the county palatine of Hen Ogledd, essentially 'Earl of the Old North', on the Head of the Potter line to solicit the Druids' support in dealing with their enemies. Then, when the title of Duke came into use in Britain in the Fourteenth Century, the Earl of Hen Ogledd's title was commuted to the Duke of Hen Ogledd by Edward the Third in an attempt to bolster good will with Magical Britain, and they have held that title since then. It has remained as a Duchy Palatine, effectively granting them the right to rule Magical Britain as a separate kingdom. The Heads of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter have retained the title 'Lord Potter' in common usage, but they are rightfully the rulers of Magical Britain."

Gringott grew angrier then. "Albus Dumbledore somehow confounded Charlus, Harry's grandfather, and wrested control of the Wizengamot from him in the Forties after he supposedly eliminated Gellert Grindelwald…."

He was interrupted at that point by Ted, Andi and Remus demanding to know what he meant by 'supposedly eliminated', because the story of how Dumbledore had killed the Dark Wizard Grindelwald and ended his reign of terror was one of the keystones of the magical world.

"Well for a start, Dumbledore was Grindelwald's lover and partner up until they had a falling out over some minor point of ideology and began throwing curses at each other. Dumbledore's teenage sister was killed by a curse that one of them cast and Grindelwald left after that. Dumbledore still carried a torch for Grindelwald but when the rest of the Magical world became disgusted by his excesses and indiscriminate killing, Dumbledore saw a chance to gain the power and influence he craved, so he went to Grindelwald, saying that he had been wrong and wanted to join him again, then stunned him when his back was turned. He placed compulsions on Grindelwald and everyone else to support the stories of his triumph over the Dark Lord, but he was still obsessed with him so he didn't kill him, he had him locked away in Nurmengard where he could go see him when he wanted to."

He nodded to say the matter was closed with that as they stared at him in shock and continued his story. "Once Dumbledore used the fame and accolades coming to him as the Defeater of Grindelwald to gain control of the Wizengamot, and to a lesser extent the International Confederation of Wizards, he started getting laws put through to shore up his power and discredit anyone who opposed him…." Gringott paused at this point and looked fiercely at them. "One thing that you must _never_ forget is that Dumbledore is a master of Mind Magics! It's the only true strength he has but with the power of the Elder Wand he can control anyone! I wish I could restrict that to humans but unfortunately we've seen proof that he has controlled key goblins as well over the past fifty years to take things that he should not have been able to from the Potters' and others' vaults and holdings..." He growled as he added. "Of course, greed was quite enough to get other goblins and humans to do his bidding, but I have records of everything he has stolen and vow that there will be an accounting when we have the power to defeat him!" With a grim smile he added. "That time has already come for those _goblins_ who willingly aided him."

* * *

At that point, the senior healer who had been examining Harry burst into the office and began whispering urgently to Gringott in Goblin. Whatever he said made Gringott go white and bark orders in Goblin that had the senior healing running back out of the office. Seeing Gringott shakily stand and go to a side table to pour himself a stiff drink and down it in one swallow worried them, especially Ted, Andi and Remus, because they didn't want to think about what could have shaken the world's most powerful goblin this badly. Gringott started muttering fiercely in English as he finished his second drink "I will rip that goat raper's heart out for this..." but he suddenly remembered that he had an audience and turned to address them.

"The healers have found an abomination attached to Lord Potter, Riddle…." he stopped to explain at the confusion on their faces "The one you know of as Lord Voldemort is actually Tom Marvolo Riddle, the bastard son of Merope Gaunt, who was the daughter of a degraded inbred Pureblood family and just barely qualified as a witch, and Tom Riddle, the son of the local squire whom she used love potions on to get him to elope with her. She stopped using the potions on him once they were married and she was pregnant, apparently believing that he wouldn't leave her then, but when they wore off he rejected her in disgust and his family had their marriage annulled as soon as he returned home. Riddle's mother died soon after giving birth to him and he was raised in a Muggle orphanage until Dumbledore came to collect him for Hogwarts, as part of his duties as the Deputy Headmaster….. Anyway, when Riddle tried to kill Harry after murdering his parents, apparently some protection that they had placed over Harry lashed out and destroyed Riddle, but he must have already begun the ritual to create a soul anchor because when he was destroyed his soul, or whatever that foul creature had called a soul, split and part of it was attached to Harry, inside that nasty scar on his forehead apparently…."

"I should have identified it myself, but I missed it in all the uncontrolled magic that was rolling off our young Lord. His magical power would have been much less five years ago though, Dumbledore could not have missed it when he left the infant with those Muggles, so he must have _intentionally_ left that dark presence in him. Albus Dumbledore will pay for that! I have instructed the healer to have our people remove the dark presence from Lord Potter before they begin the rest of his healing. It seems that Dumbledore also bound his magic and intellect quite severely, so apparently our young Lord Harry is even brighter and more powerful than he's shown himself to be…. And on top of that abomination and the bindings that Dumbledore put on him, our Lord Potter has apparently been starved, burned and beaten and is showing evidence of numerous broken bones and other injuries, so there will also be an accounting for those animals who had him for five years!"

There was silence in Gringott's office after that, as they were all struggling to accept what they'd heard, even Hermione had an understanding of how horribly her new friend had been treated.

The adults had a round of stiff drinks and then they sat down to begin making arrangements for Harry. They'd discussed this with Harry the night before and the Grangers were happy to have him join their family, because it was agreed that he needed to learn what it was like interact with decent people and be a part of a family, but it wouldn't safe for him to be living in the Magical world as Dumbledore was more likely to find him there. With the Grangers' permission, Gringott dispatched a team to ward their home and practice, taking delight in adding the mirror of one ward that the wizards so loved to use, they had reversed the anti-Muggle ward that prevented Muggles seeing or finding Magical locations to create an anti-Magical ward, so witches and wizards couldn't see or find their home or practice. They also masked any evidence of magic usage within the wards.

As Gringott was all too aware that there were still goblins who would betray the Goblin Nation and Lord Potter for personal gain, the existence of the Grangers' properties and the wards that protected them was further protected by the goblins' equivalent of the fidelius charm so that only Harry, Remus Lupin, the Tonks and those goblins and elves who Gringott had complete trust in could find the place (the elf controls were to prevent Dumbledore or others using elves to get past the controls, even though it was doubtful that they'd think of that). Gringott also had the goblins' version of the floos installed in the Granger and Tonks properties, added strong wards to the Tonks properties and advised the Potter elves that their Lord had been found and was being healed so it was time to wake up Potter Manor. A final security measure implemented for the Grangers was to have all owl mail for them redirected to Gringotts so that no-one could find them through the owls.

* * *

They had time to do all of this because Harry was tied up with the goblins' healers for over a week and a half while they took him through the initial intensive recovery processes. Remus was also with the goblin healers for a week, having the damage caused by twenty five years of werewolf transformations addressed, the plan was for him to stay at Potter Manor but they had to wait until Harry was able to authorise that, so until then he'd remain in Gringotts.

One thing that didn't wait for Harry's recovery was the matter of the Dursleys, the ones who had been abusing Harry. Gringott sent a team of goblins to the house to extract every memory that related to Harry from them and retrieve anything and everything that belonged or related to Harry and his family. Along with the letters and mementos that were hidden about the house was some priceless jewellery that Dumbledore must have had taken from the Potter vaults to buy Harry's Aunt's cooperation, so that was added onto Dumbledore's debts.

After seeing the memories that they'd extracted from them, the goblins knew that there was only one order that would come from Gringott, so they killed all three of them, making sure that the parents in particular suffered appropriately, then they staged the scene as an exceedingly sick murder suicide where the fat walrus of a father had tied up and flogged, sexually abused and killed his wife and son before killing himself.

Their names and address were sent to the worst of the Muggle scandal rags with plenty of pictures to ensure that word got around Britain before it could be covered up. Then they went after the husband's sister, who had abused Harry as well, and did a similar thing to her, though it was made to look as though she'd killed herself before her crimes could come out there. It took the Police almost a week to find her body, and by that stage her favourite Bulldog who she kept in the house had eaten well.

Dumbledore didn't realise that anything was wrong until his pet Death Eater came running to show him the scandal sheets. He rushed straight to the Dursley's house, only to find it awash with Police, so all he could do was cast listening charms on them to try and discover what was going on. That didn't alleviate his worries though, because they were talking about the evidence that there had been another boy there, apparently the wife's nephew Harry Potter. There was plenty of evidence to show that this boy had been physically abused at least from the blood stains around the house that didn't match the blood types of the Dursleys, and he'd been kept locked up in the cupboard under the stairs from the 'HARRY'S ROOM' that was scratched above the door on the inside and the thin mattress and blanket in there, there was certainly no sign that he'd been staying in any of the rooms upstairs. From the amount of blood found and the fact that the boy had disappeared, the investigators agreed that it was most likely that he had been killed and his body disposed of a few days before the father murdered his wife and son and then killed himself.

With all of his plans crashing down around him, Dumbledore went back to Hogwarts to reconsider what he was to do, not realising that there was another, bigger, kick in the coit waiting for him. All the while he had been observing the Police at the Dursleys, Magical Britain's biggest and most malicious gossip queen had been observing _HIM_. Rita Skeeter habitually read all the Muggle scandal sheets in hope of finding dirt on people from the Magical world, and one of the reports of the Dursley murder/suicide had mentioned the name Harry Potter. As the only thing Dumbledore had ever admitted about the whereabouts of the Boy-Who-Lived was the fact that he was hidden in the Muggle world, she had rushed to the house and was poking about in her unregistered animagus form when Dumbledore arrived, so she'd heard everything that Dumbledore had, but she'd also heard what he was muttering to himself and it was _all_ gold! Dumbledore had dumped the Boy-Who-Lived on an abusive Muggle family and then left him to be abused and murdered without doing a thing to protect him! A horrifying picture from the scandal sheet of a boy being abused was of the Dursleys' son, but she wouldn't have any trouble linking that to the Muggle Law Enforcement people's comments about Harry Potter being abused, it wasn't her fault if the readers misinterpreted the manner of abuse the Boy-Who-Lived was subjected to, and for that matter they had no proof that he _hadn't_ been abused that way. Her only worry was how she was going to make sure that she milked this for every knut it was worth…. After all, it wasn't every day that you got expose the Leader of the Light as a sick old bastard who got the Boy-Who-Lived abused and murdered!

The Grangers and the Tonks were disturbed by what they read about the Dursleys fate, not that they thought that they didn't deserve it, but the way it had been done _was_ rather disturbing. They managed to prevent Hermione or Dora seeing any of the reports (though Dora would see Skeeter's expose when it was published in the Daily Prophet), and they were unanimous that Harry wasn't to see them.

* * *

Harry finished with the goblin healers a few days before Christmas, which made for a Christmas at the Grangers' that was both joyous and heartbreaking. Seeing Harry's innocent joy at experiencing Christmas warmed their hearts, but the knowledge that it was new to him because this was effectively only his second Christmas as for the last five years he had been locked away in a dark box ( _after_ he'd done all the work for the Dursleys' Christmas the last few years) made the adults wish that they could revive the Dursleys and punish them more.

He'd definitely come back from the healers much better than he was before though, he was taller and had filled out into a tall and healthy boy now, much the same size that his father had been at his age according to Gringott, and without the corruption of that dark presence, the bindings and the enchantments that Dumbledore had apparently put on him to make him look just like James Potter, he looked much more like Lily than James. His hair was now a deep auburn, shot through with copper highlights and hanging to his shoulders, as the women had agreed that it needed to be kept long because that was the only way to manage unruly hair like that, and tying it back was the only way to make it neat. Without that thing in his head, that scar had almost disappeared and his eyesight was fine now so those glasses were gone and you could see his gorgeous emerald green eyes….

Andi laughed at Jean as they agreed that Harry was going to be a handful as he grew up, because they could tell that he was going to be gorgeous when he got older so keeping the girls away from him was going to be a lot of work. Jean had to shake her head ruefully in agreement when Andi made a snarky comment about "Especially _one_ girl" because she could see the same thing…. they were only children and had only spent a few days together so far, but everyone could already see the connection between Harry and Hermione, and they both vehemently rejected any inference that they were brother and sister, they were _best friends!_

By the time they went to see the goblins, Jean and Roger were Auntie Jean and Uncle Rog to Harry, but while he was already close to them he was quite clear that they _weren't_ his Mummy and Daddy, and that wasn't likely to change. They understood that he wasn't rejecting them when Harry explained that he remembered everything back to when he was a baby, so he remembered his Mummy and Daddy and didn't want to forget them, he desperately wanted his new family but he wanted to hang onto his parents too.

* * *

While he was explaining how he remembered everything, Harry told them about just what had happened the day his parents were killed, how the bad man came in and his Mummy was trying to protect him right up until he killed her, then he said "You will never stop _me_ boy!", pointed his stick, his… wand? at him and a green light came out of it. Then a bright light flashed out and the bad man started screaming as he turned to dust and fell down, but he got a bad pain in his head too as the bad man fell down. Soon after that he heard someone calling out "Master? What is wrong? Why were you screaming?" and when he came into the room he saw that it was his father's rat faced friend, the one he was supposed to call Uncle Peter but he called Rat and weed on. The rat fell to his knees next to the pile of dust with the bad man's robes and said "Master, what has happened to you?" then picked up the bad man's wand and pointed it at him, but he looked afraid and went over to his Mummy. He was pulling her clothes open and touching her in places only his Daddy was supposed to touch her, but then he got angry because he found that all of her rings and things had disappeared and ran out of the room.

A little while after that Uncle Paddy came in, he was crying when he went to look at Mummy but he covered her up and then came and picked him up, crying and saying "We've lost them Pup, they're gone!" as he carried him downstairs and out of the cottage. They'd just gotten outside when Uncle Hagger landed in the street on Uncle Paddy's bike, he started crying too when he saw Uncle Paddy crying but he said. "Give Harry to me Sirius, Dumbledore said that I have to take him to him!" Uncle Paddy was still crying but he said. "Alright Hagrid, you take him back to Hogwarts and keep him safe for now, but tell Dumbledore that I'll be coming to get him as James and Lily wanted as soon as I've dealt with the Rat."

Uncle Paddy turned into his dog form then and ran off into the woods and Uncle Hagger tucked him into his coat to fly back to the castle. Uncle Albi made Uncle Hagger leave him with him and was waving his wand over him for a while then he said. "You certainly are the child of the prophecy Harry, Tom has marked you with a piece of himself! He was supposed to kill you so that I could finish him off, but now we will have to wait until he returns to physical form. No matter, no-one will find you in the Muggle world with your Aunt and you can stay there until you to come to Hogwarts, by then you should be ready to take your place as the noble sacrifice who paved the way to Tom's downfall at my hand. It is a pity that Sirius will have to take the blame for what happened, but I can't have him interfering with that."

He must have been put to sleep after that because the next thing he remembered was waking up, cold, when his Aunt picked him up from where he'd been left outside their front door and rushing him inside before anyone could see him.

They decided that even with Harry's incredible memory, they shouldn't change his name too much, so with Harry's agreement he became Henry James Evans in the Muggle world. By the time he came home just before Christmas, everything was properly lodged in the system, the Grangers had legally adopted him as Henry Evans and he was enrolled in the same school, the same class, as Hermione. Harry was starting a new life, but it wasn't just him, all their lives were changing.

 **A/N: Yeah I know, the name's lame sorry, but then that's almost a pre-requisite in the HP world innit? Anyone who's read my HP stories should know by now that they'll be HP/HG because that's the pairing that works the best in my mind. Hopefully this will give me the basis for a different story.**


	2. So This Is Christmas

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's gritty fiction.**

It took a few days for Harry to stop waiting to be woken up by banging on his cupboard door and his Aunt screeching at him to come and make their breakfast, to accept that he was actually here and no-one was going to hit him or call him 'Freak'…..

That brought him to another question though, if he was really here and this wasn't a dream, if Uncle Mooney was here….. where was Uncle Paddy? He knew that Mummy and Daddy were gone, Uncle Mooney had explained that they couldn't come back because of the way the bad man hurt them, but why wasn't Uncle Paddy here?

He knew that something was wrong when Uncle Mooney started crying when he asked that, but it was Uncle Ted who sat him down and told him that Uncle Paddy had been sent away because he did something bad. Ted's heart almost broke when Harry asked what Uncle Paddy did.

"He helped the bad man hurt your Mummy and Daddy Harry, so they decided that he had to be punished in a bad place..."

"But it wasn't Uncle Paddy Uncle Ted, it was the Rat!"

"What are you saying Harry? Everyone says that it was your Uncle Paddy."

"Uncle Hagger knows it wasn't him! Uncle Paddy told him that he was going after the Rat and to tell Uncle Albi that he would be coming back for me after he got him!"

"Uncle Hagger must have forgot Harry, because Uncle Albi was the one why decided that Uncle Paddy had to go to the bad place."

"No! Uncle Hagger _told_ him, I remember!"

Harry repeated the story of everything that happened and was said on the day his parents were murdered, but Remus, Ted and Andi were hearing it for the first time. After he repeated the story, they took him to Gringotts to tell Uncle Gringott, and Gringott got furious again. He'd known that Dumbledore had sent the boy he thought of as family even if he _was_ human to those animals, sealed James and Lily's wills and unlawfully took control of the Potter votes, but it was now obvious that the goat fukr had _also_ decided to throw the last hope for redemption of another one of the core guiding families into Azkaban on false charges just to prevent him from interfering with his plans for young Harry….

Gringott suddenly slammed his fist into his desk as he barked. "We will have the will readings for Lord and Lady Potter that were blocked five years ago by the wizards now that the new Lord Potter is back with us!"

It appeared that Gringott had a plan of some sort, but Harry was the only one in the office who could understand much of what he was saying him as he was chopping back and forth between English and Goblin angrily. Ted showed that Hufflepuffs can have Gryffindor courage too when he tried to get through to him, shouting. "Explain what your point is in English please Director Gringott!"

Gringott barked a laugh as he stopped and slapped him on the back. "It's been a long time since anyone has had the courage to challenge me when I was angry Mister Tonks, from now on _you_ can call me Gringott."

"Thank you Gringott, please call me Ted, but can you explain what you plan to do in a language that we can understand please?"

Gringott nodded and spoke in English "As I told you when you first came here, the Potters were the leaders of the Druids and Wizards Council, which were the same thing, they only changed the name because calling themselves Druids gave the Christian priests an excuse to stir up trouble. Anyway, the Council was always made up of the thirteen guiding families of Magical Britain. Some of those families changed over the one and a half millennia that the Council guided Magical Britain, but well over half of them remain to this day, as does the alliance that was forged between them when they became part of the newly created Wizengamot in the Sixteenth Century. That alliance has maintained links between the guiding families, even if they haven't always seen eye to eye, so representatives of most of the other guiding families were named in James and Lily Potter's wills. Can you think of a better way to get them together to try and resolve this issue?"

Ted laughed. "No Gringott, I can't, but…. What about the fact that Dumbledore had Lily and James' wills sealed in the Wizengamot? Won't they argue that it's illegal to read the wills?"

Gringott shook his head with a toothy, menacing grin. "The rulings of the Wizengamot only hold weight in Magical Britain Ted, _not_ here in the Goblin Nation! That was a master stroke of the Lord Potter of the time when he championed the creation of Gringotts Bank in the Fifteenth Century so that the goblins could handle the finances of the wizarding world for them. He successfully argued that goblins needed to able to rule themselves and control everything within their domain if they were to properly protect what they held in trust for the wizarding world. The other wizards didn't understand the ramifications of this, so they agreed to the condition to create a separate Goblin Nation which had Gringotts Bank and everything beneath it as sovereign soil to get the goblins to take over all the work and responsibility of managing their finances for them. Goblins around the world quickly saw the value of this move so a Gringotts and Goblin Nation has been created in most countries of the magical world, because this generated considerable income for them and meant that the wizards couldn't take them over and subjugate them without having the other Goblin Nations around the world join the fight. What that means for us is that once we get the representatives of the guiding families in here for the will reading, the laws of the wizarding world don't matter."

Ted laughed again. "That's perfect, now as I can't see you doing this unless there's some value in it for us, may I ask who these representatives of the guiding families are?"

Gringott nodded, pleased that Ted had gotten that point. "Some aren't important, or at least can't make much of a difference at the moment, but Amelia Bones, Saul Croaker, Griselda Marchbanks, Tiberius Ogden, Augusta Longbottom, Cyrus Greengrass and Minerva McGonagall are all witches and wizards who are listened to. I'd like to have Lord Black there too, because contrary to what everyone is saying, he was intelligent enough to neither remove Sirius Black as his current Heir nor cast him out of the House of Black as some members of his house were demanding, but it is _Heir_ Black who is named in the wills rather than him….. Wait, this could work, Heir Black was never tried for his alleged crimes, therefore his incarceration in Azkaban is actually illegal. Which means that, strictly speaking, removing him from Azkaban to allow him to present a case for his innocence in front of the Lords and ladies of the Wizards Council is _not_ illegal, and Wizards Council laws still take precedence over Wizengamot laws because the Wizards Council was retained as the high court when the Wizengamot was created…."

He nodded to himself again. "Yes, this is what we will do, we will copy young Harry's memories of that day, and what he went through with the Dursleys too, and I will charge Amelia Bones and Saul Croaker with bringing Veritaserum that they will certify as being genuine, then I will have Sirius Black brought here from Azkaban prison…."

Ted cut him off at that. "But how can you do that Gringott? You can't just go in there and take him…."

Gringott snorted. "Of course we can! What wizards would ever bother going to the effort of warding against anything other than _**Wizards**_ ' magic? Most of them believe that lesser creatures like goblins and elves are beneath their notice, there to serve and nothing else. With few exceptions, the only ones who ever thought otherwise were the Potters, and they kept quiet to avoid drawing attention to us."

"But if you could have taken him out of there at any time, why did you leave Sirius to rot in there?"

Gringott's shoulders slumped. "Because I believed that he was guilty of betraying the Potters... While I knew that he had never received a trial, I'd never heard anything before this to refute the story that he had been the Potters' secret keeper and therefore was the one who betrayed them to Riddle so that they were killed. As I told you when you first came here, the Fae peoples care for the Potters because they have protected us for two thousand years, so I wasn't going to lift a finger to help the one who I believed caused the deaths of Lord and Lady Potter and let that old goat fukr take their son away…."

"Now, however, I know that Lord and Lady Potter's faith in Heir Black was justified, and his only real failing was in trusting Dumbledore so I have wronged him and will do what I can to redeem myself. If we cannot get Magical Britain to clear Heir Black's name, the Goblin Nation will get him to safety, Harry and the family will be able to see him when they want but he will be safe from the wizards of Britain."

A small voice piped up at that. "Thank you Uncle Gringott."

They all stopped and looked at Harry, shocked that they could have forgotten the quiet child as they raged and debated about what to do, and Gringott leant down to look him in the eye. "No, thank _you_ Harry. Thank you for showing me the truth and that I was wrong, one way or another we will get your Uncle Paddy back…."

* * *

He paused at that and then stood and turned to Remus. "While we're sharing old secrets Remus, would you care to explain how Heir Black is a dog animagus and I never knew about it? Your nickname obviously relates to your unfortunate condition, but it sounds as though Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail relate to something else... Would you care to explain?"

Remus hesitated and then nodded. "James discovered that the Lycanthropy virus apparently only exists in human bodies, and changing into an animal form is enough to stop the virus. James and Sirius decided that if they became animagi they could accompany me when I was the wolf so that I wouldn't have to go through that alone each month. They researched what was needed to become an animagus and did it all on their own in secret. They dragged the Rat along with them because they were trying to make him feel a part of our group, in hindsight _that_ was a mistake. When he eventually took a form a year after James and Sirius, none of us were really surprised that the form he took was a dirty grey rat because we couldn't think of him as anything else…. he complained when Sirius gave his form the name Wormtail, but James and I agreed so he was stuck with it. Sirius thought that it was hilarious that the form _he_ took was a black Irish Wolfhound, James gave him the name Padfoot from the Black Dog legends. For some reason James took the form of a stag, which Sirius ever so imaginatively named Prongs…. I could never understand why he took the form of a stag though, I'd always seen him as a lion, or perhaps a griffin…."

Gringott laughed at that and said "The Monarch of the Glen" as if that explained everything. When their expressions said that it hadn't explained _anything_ , he expanded. "The Monarch of the Glen is a famous Muggle painting of a noble stag from last century that hung in their House of Parliament. Young Harry here's namesake Lord Henry was as much of a prankster as his grandson James, so he made a point of stealing The Monarch of the Glen from the House of Parliament in broad daylight back in the Twenties. No-one could work out how it suddenly disappeared like that, so to avoid having to admit that they had no idea where it was or how it disappeared they replaced it with a copy before people could start asking what happened to it. The copy's still hanging in the House of Parliament, while the original has been hanging behind the desk in the master's study in Potter Manor ever since as a prize. James grew up seeing that painting right behind his father because he spent a lot of time in there learning how to be _the_ Potter from him, so I can see how it would have become his animagus form, as it was a noble animal that was associated with his father, whom he loved and respected."

They all nodded thoughtfully at that, because it _did_ make sense when he put it that way.

Harry showed what a clever boy he was then, because he asked. "Uncle Mooney, if changing into an animal makes that Lycan stuff go away, why don't you just change into one?"

Remus knelt down to look him in the eye. "It's because the wolf stops me finding my animagus form Harry, and without finding my form I can't change."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Oh, so it only works for those magi animal forms then? I'm sorry Uncle Mooney, I didn't understand."

Remus froze at that, staring at him, then slowly turned to look at Ted, Andi and Gringott. "It _can't_ be that simple! Can it?"

Harry was confused. 'What do you mean Uncle Mooney?"

Gringott laughed. "From the mouths of babes! What Remus means Harry, is that you may have just solved a problem that has plagued our world for thousands of years, because no-one else has ever thought to ask that question…. Wizards! They think they're better than everyone else but a six year old child does what they haven't been able to do, think!"

He turned to Remus and solemnly asked. "Am I correct in believing that you wish to try this Mister Lupin?"

Remus nodded emphatically. "Most definitely!"

"Very well, we'll do this properly then, we'll get you to St Mungo's straight away to get formal confirmation that you currently have Lycanthropy, and I'll find out whether any of our human wizards are good enough at human to animal transformations to trust them to change you, if not we'll have to find someone better."

"If you're bringing Professor McGonagall in for James and Lily's will readings Director Gringott, I'm quite prepared to trust her to do it."

"Of course! She is one of Britain's, if not Europe's, foremost masters of transformation! Yes, that would be best I believe Mister Lupin, we'll get the formal confirmation from St Mungo's that you have the Lycanthropy strain in your blood now, then when she comes in we'll get that confirmed again just before we have her change you into some form of animal and back and test you again…."

He stopped and looked at Harry. "Harry, if this works it will be one of the most significant discoveries ever made in the Magical world, it will probably change the lives of thousands of humans, both Magical and Non-Magical, and that's just present day, but I'm afraid that we can't afford to let Magical Britain find out that you're to thank for it as long as we're trying to hide you from Dumbledore. Do you understand why this is so Harry?"

Harry nodded at him. "Yes Uncle Gringott, Uncle Albi is a bad man who pretends to be good so we have to hide from him. I don't mind, as long as it helps Uncle Mooney that's all that matters."

Remus sobbed and crushed Harry in a hug. When Ted looked from Andi to Gringott with tears in his eyes at this sight he made an amazing discovery, that goblins could cry too, because Gringott also had tears in his eyes as he looked proudly at Harry.

When Gringott caught Ted staring at him he gruffly turned away and touched a rune stone on his desk, barking orders in Goblin at the stone, there was a lot to be done if they were to get the representatives of the guiding families into Gringotts for the will reading that afternoon, and turn the Wizarding world upside down.

* * *

A dozen powerful and well known witches and wizards were surprised by Gringotts owls arriving around lunch time on the day after the Christian Christmas. They were even more surprised to see that they were being personally summoned to Gringotts in an hour and admonished not to say a word of where they were going to anyone, by Director Gringott himself. The summonses for those with children included a note advising them to bring them if that made them more comfortable because other children would be there. The Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Director of the Department of Mysteries' summonses also had a 'request' to bring a supply of certified Veritaserum with them, which was at once both questionable and intriguing.

At the same time, two imposing goblins suddenly appeared in Sirius Black's cell in Azkaban and bowed to the black dog laying on the cot, quietly saying. "Merry Christmas Heir Black, please change into your human form so that we can take you with us more easily."

The dog stared at them for about thirty seconds and then suddenly turned into a haggard looking man who croaked. "So this is Christmas, is it? Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

One of the goblins looked at him as if he were mad but the other put a hand on his brother's arm to stay any comment as he spoke, the human had been in this hell for over five years so they had to expect him to be a little off…. in fact he was remarkably calm and lucid, all things considered. "We are part of Director Gringott's personal staff in Gringotts London Heir Black, and we have been sent to collect you for the hearing you should have had five years ago."

That had the man struggling to his feet as quick as he could, but he would have collapsed if they hadn't caught his arms. He nodded and croaked. "Thanks! Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here!"

They gave toothy goblin grins that would normally terrify humans and nodded. The next moment the cell was empty. They appeared in an infirmary beneath Gringotts and the human was handed over to the waiting healers, who had orders to clean him up and get him fit to talk in an hour.

It was no surprise that everyone summoned was there at the appointed time, because while many witches and wizards considered all goblins beneath them, _these_ people had a better understanding of their world than most, and they knew that no prudent person would _ever_ ignore a summons from the Overchief of the Clans of the Goblin Nation of Britain and the Director of the Gringotts Banks.

Once they were all seated, Gringott announced that they were here for the reading of the wills of Lord James and Lady Lily Potter. Some of the people present raised the fact that those wills had been sealed by the Wizengamot after James and Lily's deaths, but Gringott pointed out, as he had with Ted, that the rulings of the Wizengamot had no bearing here on the sovereign soil of the Goblin Nation, he also raised the question of whether anyone had ever asked the justification for sealing the Potter wills, as to do so without any proper authority over the Potter Estate was in fact an illegal act.

He then sought and received confirmation from all adults present that the requirements of the legal wills of the late Lord and Lady Potter would be honoured and upheld in accordance with the laws of Magical Britain. Most of them, but Amelia Bones and Saul Croaker in particular, were certain that something was going on now, as being formally asked to confirm that the requirements of the wills would be legally upheld was _not_ standard practice at a will reading. Nor was the final step taken before the actual reading, getting Directors Bones and Croaker, Madam Marchbanks and Lord Ogden to all formally confirm that the wills were legally certified.

They soon understood all these steps, as what came out of the wills was proof that just about everything the Chief Warlock had told the Wizengamot about Lord and Lady Potter's wishes and Heir Black's betrayal of them to their deaths was a lie. The fact that they had listed in order of preference who they wished to be Henry James Potter's guardians (most of whom were present in the room) and specifically stated that he was _never_ to go anywhere near Lily's Muggle sister and her family _or_ Albus Dumbledore was clear evidence of the Chief Warlock's dishonesty and guilt, seeing as he'd assured the Wizengamot that he was specifically following their wishes when he placed Harry with Lily's sister and made himself Harry's Magical Guardian. Gringott smiled wolfishly as he pointed out that Dumbledore had actually made himself _Harry_ James Potter's legal guardian though, which meant that he had no rights at all over Lord _Henry_ James Potter, and therefore had had no right to allocate the voting proxies for the House of Potter to himself as _Harry_ James Potter's guardian. He also pointed out that as the child that he had made himself the guardian of was legally dead, his proxies as his guardian had been automatically cancelled.

Madam Marchbanks shook her head. "I think it is time to formally question Mister Dumbledore's competence to stand as Chief Warlock if he can't even get the name of the person he's stealing from right!….. But why couldn't we find out all this out _before_ Henry James died?"

When the door behind Gringott opened then, he didn't bother turning around because he knew who was in the chamber there and that they'd been listening to what was being said in the room. At first the people around the table just stared at the two adults and two children who'd entered the room, until the ones who'd known Lily best and had seen Harry before the Potters went into hiding suddenly realised who this boy had to be. The look that Amelia Bones turned on Gringott would have made anyone of lesser stuff foul himself, but he just calmly stared her down. "Why did you let us think Harry had been killed? Magical Britain has been grieving him for over a week!"

"Because we were more interested in Lord Potter being alive and well than comforting the ones who abandoned him Madam Bones! And for your information, Lord Potter was in the middle of an intensive reconstruction process when the _family_ he was placed with were killed, which we wouldn't have interrupted even if we could."

"What do you mean abandoned him?"

"As I asked earlier, did _anyone_ in the Wizengamot ask for justification of sealing Lord and Lady Potter's wills, or demand to see them to confirm what was actually in them before they allowed them to be sealed, thereby sealing his fate for the next five years? _**NO!**_ You just let that old goat fukr do as he liked. Lord Potter actually escaped by spontaneously apparating across London to escape the people _**you**_ let Dumbledore leave him with after they smashed his mouth in with a bat! Why would we want to let the Wizarding world know where he was, when you would have just let Dumbledore send him back there?"

* * *

Amelia couldn't think of anything to answer that, so Gringott went on. "After the children leave the room, we will show you just what those monsters did to him, what they thought about him and why we rid the world of them. We will also show you exactly what happened the day the Potters were murdered, and who it was who really betrayed them. That was _NOT_ Heir Black, as the Potters' wills have already stated."

"But how can you know that? It was only He Who Must Not Be named and Harry as a toddler there, wasn't it?"

"At the start, it was Lily Potter, Tom Riddle…. the one you know of as Lord Voldemort, and Harry Potter, then Lily was killed and it was only Riddle and Harry until the magic reacted and destroyed Riddle, but the one who really betrayed the Potters was in the cottage too and he came to see what had happened to his _master_ …. And as for how we can know exactly what happened, our young Lord Potter has an amazing ability, he can remember everything perfectly back to when he was a babe, didn't you note that he recognised half of you, even though he hasn't seen any of you since before the Potters went into hiding?"

That made them stop and think and they realised that he was right, they'd been confused but the boy _had_ recognised many of them. They were all reeling at that moment, but Minerva McGonagall was curious about another point. "May we ask who these other people are Director Gringott? Lord Potter is obviously connected with them in some way."

Roger went to answer that but Gringott held up his hand to stop him. "I would suggest that you restrict your answers to how you found Harry and what happened after that Roger, in fact I don't think that you should mention your wife or daughter's names at all. As I told you when we first met, Dumbledore is a master of Mind Magic and he can extract anything they're told from them. We have all gone to a lot of trouble to try and keep young Harry and your family safe, we don't want to risk that by spreading information any further than it needs to be."

Looking worried, Roger nodded grimly at that and started speaking. "We're Muggles, as you lot call those of us who don't have magic. We were driving in London when my daughter suddenly screamed out 'LOOK OUT', because a little boy had just appeared in the street, right in front of our car. I only just managed to avoid hitting him, more by luck than skill, and my wife and I jumped out of the car to see if he was alright. We hadn't hurt him with the car, but he wasn't alright because some bastard had smashed all his teeth in with a cricket bat. I'm a dentist and we were close to my practice so we took him there to see about cleaning him up and doing something about the pain, though he'd been hurt so much and so often that he didn't seem to be bothered by it. We figured that it would be quicker to call the Police from there too….."

"Anyway, we got him there and cleaned him up but… my wife burst into tears because there was nothing we could do for the little tyke but clean up the mess and fit him with a complete set of dentures like people who are old and toothless have to wear. That's when it got _really_ strange, because someone asked…. my wife not to cry. It wasn't me or my daughter, and there was no way the poor boy should have been able to speak with his mouth smashed in like that, then my wife turned to look at him and fainted, I almost did too when I looked at him, because he had a full set of perfect teeth when just about every tooth had been smashed out before. I spent a bit of time convincing myself that they were in fact there and real, then a man burst into the practice looking like a lunatic who lived on the streets…."

He waved at Remus. "It was Remus, after giving us all a scare, he helped us work out that Harry had spontaneously apparated, for the second time that day. He had seen the street outside the park on the tellie…. Television?" Remus just waved at him to go on, because they didn't have time to explain television. "About a month or so before but he remembered it in enough detail to apparate there when he was desperate to get away from his _family_ after his Uncle told his cousin to smash his face in with a cricket bat!"

There were growls around the room, but Minerva and some of the others were staring at Harry in shock at the idea that he could apparate to a location he'd never been to on the basis of no more than an image he'd seen on the television a month before. Gringott rapped a dagger on his desk and Roger continued.

"Anyway, after that, we showed Remus what had happened to Harry's mouth and after he scared the hell out of us by almost turning into the wolf and _then_ telling us he was actually a werewolf, he told us he might have an idea about how Harry had managed to fix his teeth and went to get Harry's cousins..." Roger waved to the Tonks. "Dora confirmed that Harry _was_ a metamorphmagus like her and Ted organised for us to come and see Gringott to get the help we needed to look after Harry, and that's how we got here."

* * *

At that point it was agreed that the children should be sent off to another room with the Grangers before Gringott started showing Harry, Roger and Remus' memories that had been collected to date. He also passed around the letters the Dursleys had from Dumbledore about what they were expected to do with him. After seeing Hagrid on Sirius' flying bike and Petunia Dursley hastily dragging Harry inside the house before anyone could see him in Harry's memories, Minerva erupted into an impressive, if largely unintelligible, outburst of swearing in a thick Scottish brogue. When she'd calmed down enough to speak coherently, she explained that sight had dredged up the memory of her telling Dumbledore that these people weren't at all suitable to raise Lily and James' child and that he'd put her off, saying that they could discuss it back at Hogwarts, but the bastard had obviously obliviated her to stop her interfering.

Gringott looked at Remus for a while and after they both nodded he spoke. "Professor McGonagall, we were going to ask this _after_ we dealt with the matter of Heir Black, but I believe that it will be too dangerous to attempt if you get more upset… do you believe that you're enough in control to perform a complex act of transfiguration at this point?"

She looked at him suspiciously. "Yes, I am capable of doing that, what are you talking about Director Gringott?"

"Are you confident that you can perform a human to animal transformation and reverse the process safely?"

She looked at him thoughtfully for a bit and then nodded. "Yes"

Gringott looked back at Remus. "Are you ready to test this Mister Lupin?"

Remus looked resolute as he nodded. "Yes!"

Gringott nodded and touched a rune stone, speaking in goblin to call a senior healer to the room, along with one of their human healers. He looked at Ted and he nodded, going to bring Harry back in. Harry would be upset if anything went wrong but he'd be more upset if he didn't know what happened to his Uncle Mooney.

The healer came in and cast the diagnostic spells over Remus to confirm that he was in fact infected with Lycanthropy. The others were getting impatient and Minerva snapped. "We are quite aware that Mister Lupin has Lycanthropy Director Gringott, what is the point of this?"

"Calm yourself please Professor McGonagall, because this part is what we require your assistance for, can you please perform a human to animal transformation on Mister Lupin…. This could be a historic moment, so please see if you can make his animal form something memorable..." Remus barked a laugh at that and nodded. "And then when you're ready, return him to his human form."

She looked at him as if he were crazy, but could see that for all the frivolous comments, both he and Remus were deadly serious, and Harry and Ted and Andi Tonks were looking worried, so she drew a breath and changed Remus into a toucan (she had studied the exotic birds to make more of an impact when she was teaching her students about this). When the bird had stopped flapping about, she turned him back and the healers came forward to run the diagnostic spells over him again.

The ones who were involved in this were looking anxious until the human healer said in a shocked voice. "It worked…. It shouldn't be possible but it worked!"

Remus shouted joyfully and broke free of the healers who were still trying to run further scans over him to rush over to pick up Harry and swing him around gleefully, until a voice most of the adults in the room knew all too well barked out.

"Will ye stop all this caterwauling and tell us what the hell is going on here?"

Gringott chuckled, because he wasn't cowed by the witch who could bring most wizards and witches into line with a look when she was like this. "What is going on Professor McGonagall, is that you have just played a key role in what was we believe to be the first instance of an infection of Lycanthropy being cured."

The room went silent except for Remus and Harry and Minerva turned to Gringott. " _ **What?**_ "

"When Remus explained to us why James, Sirius and the Rat became animagi while they were at Hogwarts…." Minerva whipped around to send a questioning look at Remus and he nodded. "Our young Harry asked a question that will probably change our world, well two questions actually… Apparently James and Sirius discovered that Lycanthropy only exists in a human body, so changing into an animal form would make it safe to accompany a werewolf when they were changed. That was why they researched how to become Animagi and did so while they were at Hogwarts, so that they could accompany Remus when he was a wolf so that he didn't have to go through that alone….."

He smiled fondly at Harry, even though all those teeth probably would have frightened most normal children. "That was when Harry asked Remus why he didn't change into an animal to get rid of the Lycanthropy. Remus explained that his condition prevented him from finding his animagus form, so he couldn't change and Harry apologised, saying that he didn't realise that it only applied to animagus animal forms…. And that in turn led us to the question of whether this would work…. Which it appears to have done….."

Minerva stared at him. "Are you saying that we've just cured Mister Lupin of Lycanthropy by changing him into a toucan and then back to a human?"

"Well I'm sure that the healers will insist on doing many more tests before they're willing to risk their reputations on it, but yes, I believe that that is exactly what you have done Professor."

She turned to stare at Remus and Harry and then shocked everyone by rushing to hug Remus, whispering brokenly. "Oh I _do_ hope that it is true!"

* * *

Gringott smiled as he dropped the next bombshell, touching the rune stone and saying something in Goblin. When Sirius Black walked into the room, Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody and Saul Croaker's ingrained responses had them whipping their wands out at the sight of a wizard who was supposed to be in Azkaban, even though they knew he should never have been sent there. It was interesting to note that Remus, Ted and Andi Tonks and Emmeline Vance had their wands out just as fast, pointed at Amelia, Saul and Alastor, and the two goblins who had retrieved Sirius from Azkaban had quickly stepped in front of him.

Gringott was clearly amused but his tone was firm as he said. "I would suggest that you remember the repercussions of attacking a guest of the Goblin Nation on our soil and put your wands away."

That made them stop and think and they did as he said, apologising for their automatic reactions. Alastor chuckled unabashed and complemented Remus and the others on how well they responded as he sat down, then they went through the process of formally questioning Sirius under Veritaserum and watching his memories of the day that James and Lily were killed, as well as when he confronted Pettigrew.

Of course, while they had all the evidence needed to prove that Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, was innocent of all charges made against him (but not of being an unregistered animagus, they'd have to get an entry slipped into the register to cover him for that), two of the three people who'd signed the orders to send him to Azkaban without a trial still held the same positions of power, Albus Dumbledore, the Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot, and Millicent Bagnold, the Minister for Magic. Barty Crouch was no longer the Director of the DMLE, but he was still the Head of International Magical Cooperation, and that disgusting little toady Cornelius Fudge in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was still in a position to interfere with any questions about the incident. Mind you, Alastor remembered looking into the incident at the time (he always suspected a conspiracy and dug deeper if he was told to drop something), and the DMLE people who went to the scene told him that Fudge had had everyone who saw what happened obliviated before they could be asked anything about it, so all they'd had to go on was what Fudge said Black was shouting before someone stunned him.

What this added up to was that they'd have to be damned careful about how they went about getting Sirius a trial, whether it be the Wizards Council Court, Wizengamot or both. Of course, if they could get their hands on Pettigrew, Sirius would have a much stronger case. One thing they did have going for them there was the fact that they had Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick and Pomona Sprout at Hogwarts, because if Dumbledore knew anything about Pettigrew, the information would be there somewhere. He may even be hiding him at Hogwarts where he could keep an eye on him, like he did with his pet Death Eater Severus Snape.

When they were discussing this, Sirius suddenly looked at Remus and grinned, Remus looked confused until it dawned on him what Sirius was getting at and he exclaimed "The Map!". This totally confused everyone else so they had to explain how they'd created the Marauders' Map while they were at Hogwarts to help them avoid Filch, the teachers and the prefects. Filius was getting quite excited as they described how it worked but Minerva wasn't sold until they looked at her and said that it showed who and where everyone was in the castle, no matter what form they were in. As a fellow Animagus she got the point of that quick smart, if Pettigrew was using his animagus form to hide in the castle, this map would lead them to him.

Their enthusiasm waned when they were asked where this map was, because Filch had taken it off Sirius when he caught him out after curfew in seventh year. He couldn't work out what it was, because it just looked like a blank sheet of parchment until it was activated, but he'd decided that it must be something forbidden if Sirius had it so he confiscated it, putting it in a cabinet marked 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'. The devious smile that came over Minerva's face at that confused most of them, but Filius and Pomona laughed because they'd seen it before, usually just before someone who thought they were being clever had the tables turned on them, and the others caught on and laughed when she said. "I really wish that Albus would share some of the chores at the school, Filius and my latest job is to go through the things that Argus has confiscated and ensure that there's nothing in there that could be dangerous to the students!"

She looked at Remus, as the responsible one, and asked. "Activation code?"

When he responded with "It's 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good' to activate it, and 'Mischief Managed' to deactivate it." she gave a disappointed sigh and looked at Sirius, who of course got defensive. "Hey, why do you automatically presume that it was _me_ who came up with that?"

"Did you?"

"Well yes, but you don't have to presume that anything like that _must_ come from me!"

She shook her head while everyone else laughed, but Sirius suddenly stopped laughing.

"While you're looking for things at Hogwarts, please keep an eye out for James' invisibility cloak."

She just looked a question at him. "It's an heirloom, handed down from father to son in the Potter family, and it's something special, far better than anything we had in the Aurors. We shouldn't have had it at Hogwarts but it was just so much fun when no-one could find us. Filch caught us with it and confiscated it, but when he took us to the Headmaster's office, Albus took it off of him. James asked for it back when we finished at Hogwarts because it was a Potter heirloom, but Albus claimed that he couldn't find it. He told him that he'd return it as soon as he found it but as far as I know that was the last James ever heard of it, I'm sure he still has it there somewhere."

* * *

Filius was looking intrigued, because from what Sirius said this was certainly no ordinary invisibility cloak, but Minerva looked concerned, because the more they were hearing about him, the more she was coming to doubt the man she'd believed in and followed for decades, and that did not feel good at all.

Given her growing doubts about Albus, Minerva asked Gringott whether the goblins knew of any method by which she could improve her mind defences in a hurry. He looked at her for a while, measuring her, then nodded. "We do, but you will have a terrible headache afterwards." Filius' eyes widened at that, because that was the first time he'd heard of this process being offered to anyone outside the Goblin Nation.

Minerva gave Gringott much the same look as he had her, then nodded. "If it will protect my mind against him, I'll take the headache. I'm coming to realise that he has been taking liberties with my mind and I do not like that at all!"

Gringott nodded approvingly and sent her off to the Mind Healers to have occlumency skills inserted into her head. The rest of the adults took an array of memory charms or oaths to protect the information they'd heard here today, and arrangements were made to improve the wards of all their homes so that they could install goblin floos, because it was agreed that trouble was coming and they wanted to prepare themselves and their children for it, to keep the children safe. It was marvellous what you could get done when you had the resources of the Goblin Nation at your disposal.

The warning about the headache was no exaggeration, and Minerva was reeling when they flooed back to Hogsmeade, so she was quite happy to find that there was a carriage to take them back up to the Castle.

* * *

After the others had left, Remus, Sirius, Harry, the Grangers and the Tonks discussed their next steps with Gringott. This was quite a serious conversation for a six, seven and thirteen year old to be involved in, but they seemed to have already been marked by the Fates, or at least Harry had been and the girls were committed to helping him, so much so that they convinced their parents to let them get the same occlumency skillset as Minerva loaded into their heads when Harry did. It was only the fact that Gringott assured them that it was much easier to assimilate as a child than as an adult and that it would help them organise their minds and pick up all the extra things they would be studying more easily that got the Grangers and the Tonks to agree, but they were relieved to see that the kids _did_ have an easier time of it than Remus and Sirius did, as they all got it loaded at the same time.

Sirius' choices until Amelia and the others managed to organise a trial to get him officially cleared came down to staying in Gringotts or Potter Manor (which had wards at the same level), or moving to one of the Potters' overseas properties. The option of being able to see Harry made him choose staying at Potter Manor with Remus, because Harry and the others would be coming there for training quite often.

The batteries of tests that Remus was put through by the goblins' healers were followed by more of the same at St Mungo's before he was officially certified as being completely clear of Lycanthropy. Another thing that was of considerable interest to the healers was that he had retained most of, if not all of the werewolf's enhanced speed, strength, stamina, senses and rejuvenation abilities (and temper) in human form, so he was being asked a lot of questions about how he managed to rid himself of the affliction. He just stuck to the story that the people who came up with the process wanted to test it more on other subjects and make sure that there weren't any negative aspects to it before they went public, the healers could understand that so they backed off, just asking him to return around the full moon each month for a while to ensure that it was actually gone and didn't return. They _did_ provide the official certification to get him removed from the Werewolf Register as soon as they finished the tests though, and it felt good to see his name crossed out, especially as he was told he was the first one to be officially removed while he was alive.

 **A/N: Hey, if the original story line was that animagi were safe from Lycanthropy when they were changed into their animal forms, who's to say that the virus _doesn't_ only exist in a human body and therefore can be removed by changing into an animal form and then back? I see the werewolves' monthly transformation as more of a metamorphmagus than an animagus transformation, so it is a human change of form rather than actually transforming into an animal. Works for me! ;^) **

**I know I've used the retention of the werewolf's abilities and traits in human form before but I think it's cool, and actually plausible. In my world they didn't instantly get those abilities in human form when they were infected, they developed them from exposure to the wolf over time _after_ they were infected, so they wouldn't lose them after they're cured.**

 **NB: The stag animagus form never made any sense to me, a predator of some sort seemed more logical as James was a warrior, so I thought I'd have some fun with it.**


	3. Laying The Foundations

**If anyone actually likes the Albus or Molly characters, you _won't_ like this one, so I suggest that you skip it.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.**

None of them _ever_ thought that they'd ever be saying these words, but they could have kissed Rita Skeeter. There was so much fallout from her article in the Daily Prophet about his role in the abuse and death of the Boy-Who-Lived that Dumbledore was running around like a headless chicken, trying to repair his shredded reputation and his ties with his supporters.

This gave Minerva and Filius the opportunity they needed to go through Filch's 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous' cupboard to find and retrieve the Marauders' Map. They also located and collected a fair number of actual dangerous items (covering the purported purpose of the exercise), and quite a few Heirloom items that should have been returned to their houses immediately, not that they should _ever_ have been taken from their owners. They drew quite a bit of satisfaction from turning these Heirlooms over to Amelia to be officially returned to their rightful owners, knowing that Filch would be facing charges for stealing the Heirlooms of Noble, Ancient and in some instances even Noble and Ancient Houses, and so would Dumbledore for his part in covering it up, because Filch made a point of telling them that the Headmaster had agreed that these things needed to be locked away properly.

Dumbledore would have been horrified if he knew that they'd actually stunned Filch and took him to Gringotts to have the goblins' masters of Mind Magic go through his head and harvest the memories of everything he'd done at Hogwarts before his trial. They found a compulsion to take any special items he confiscated to Dumbledore and never tell anyone about it. They also found many instances where Dumbledore had kept those items and obliviated Filch so that he wouldn't remember anything about them.

The problem with that was, over the past few hundred years, most Witches and Wizards had become inherently lazy, so they generally did the absolute minimum required to get their desired result. That was why all the 'Obliviate' memory charm actually did was prevent the _subject_ from accessing those particular memories, they were still there in their heads if someone had another way of finding them, and the goblins' masters of Mind Magic _did!_ The memory of Dumbledore taking James' invisibility cloak was just one of many instances where he'd taken rare and priceless Heirlooms belonging to everything up to and including the Noble and Most Ancient Houses and tried to ensure that no-one remembered.

While they were discussing this, Alastor shared the trick he'd started using during the war when he first discovered that his dear friend Albus had been Obliviating him to cover up the things he was doing that he didn't want anyone else to know about. He carried a supply of vials suitable for holding memory strands with him at all times, and whenever anything happened or he saw or heard anything that could be significant, he'd quietly take a copy of the memory and store it. When he got home, he'd compare the stored memories with what he could remember to see whether anyone had managed to Obliviate him of anything, and he regularly checked his memories against the ones he had stored. The sad thing was, as paranoid as that sounded, the risk of it happening was very real, so all of the adults at least started following Alastor's example.

* * *

They had used the official reason to start this search to kill two birds with one stone, because Minerva had a letter from the Head of the Minor House of Tonks (as with Sirius, Lord Arcturus Black hadn't actually cast Andromeda out of the House of Black as everyone believed, so she'd retained her status as a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, which served to automatically infer 'Minor House' status on the Tonks family when she married Ted, even though Ted was a Muggleborn wizard) advising her that their daughter Nymphadora had admitted to having been caught misbehaving at school, and that some of the items which Mr Filch had confiscated from her could actually be quite dangerous if not handled with proper care and practices. This was ample justification to commence a search of the confiscated items, and they found plenty of items which could have been what she was referring to so they didn't need to create any (the records Filch kept were so sloppy that the fact that she'd never actually been caught by him wasn't likely to come out).

The other part of that letter was used to set detentions for Dora for the rest of the year at Ted's request to teach her a lesson not to do anything so thoughtless and dangerous again. Once school started back, Dora would be serving detention at least twice a week, with these detentions alternating between Pomona, Minerva, Filius and other professors who they trusted with their secret to give her extra training, and she used the goblin floo in Minerva's secured chambers to go to Potter manor for training with Remus, Sirius, Alastor Moody and others quite often as well.

They ensured that the guiding family members of the Hogwarts Governors Board were the ones who were present at Argus Filch's Wizengamot trial and his subsequent sentencing to nearly six years in Azkaban's minimum security cells (one month per minor stolen heirloom, up to several months for significant heirlooms) The fact that Dumbledore couldn't be contacted to answer questions about his part in the Heirlooms' theft was noted, but the court ruled that the evidence presented didn't support criminal proceedings against him, so determination of his punishment was delegated to the Hogwarts Board.

The Hogwarts Board members present proposed that as Filch needed to be replaced immediately, and the Headmaster obviously couldn't be trusted to select a suitable person for the job, the Caretaker's duties should be rolled into the existing roles of Hogwarts' Gamekeeper and Keeper of Grounds and Keys, Rubeus Hagrid, with the Caretaker's pay being added to his existing pay for the extra work. They officially called Hagrid to the Ministry to request that he accept the Caretaker's role being added to his existing duties, but the main purpose was to get him out of Hogwarts so they could get him into Gringotts to have the goblins' healers give him a thorough examination and deal with whatever Dumbledore had done to him. Hagrid had the same occlumency skillset as the others loaded into his head (to help protect his mind against Dumbledore and try and regain access to all the memories that Dumbledore had set adrift when he repeatedly obliviated him over the last forty five years) after the bindings, compulsions, memory charms and the like that Dumbledore put on him had been removed, so he was the epitome of a bear with a sore head by the time he returned to Hogwarts.

* * *

Minerva, Filius and Pomona lit up with vindictive glee as they watched Snape get his just deserts at last when he tried to take out his usual foul mood on Hagrid by deriding him when he didn't get out of his way fast enough. "Watch where you're going you stupid oaf! What are you doing tracking mud through the castle like that anyway? I think it's time I threw my support behind Mister Filch's demands to the Headmaster that you not be allowed inside the castle any more, that should teach you your place, if something like you _can_ be taught!"

That got him lifted by his robes and slammed back against the wall with his feet four or five feet off the floor. "Shut your gob you 'orrible little git! Filch won't be making no more demands because that thief is in Azkaban and _I'M_ the caretaker now, so if you want any of those messes you make down there cleaned up you better be polite from now on! The members of the _Board_ asked me to take on this extra job for the good of Hogwarts personal like and they told me to come to them if anyone gave me trouble, so don't give me trouble unless you want to answer to them!"

Snape saw the professors watching and demanded that they get this oaf off of him immediately. Minerva's mirth disappeared instantly as she bit out. "Are you hard of hearing Mister Snape? As Mister Hagrid has just told you, the Board has _personally_ requested him to take on the duties of Caretaker as a favour to them because Hogwarts cannot afford any more incidents of staff stealing from Noble and Ancient Houses, perhaps even Noble and Most Ancient Houses, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are still investigating other possible thefts…. and _they_ have the utmost faith in _Mister_ _Hagrid_ 's Integrity and Honesty. The Board no longer has any faith in the Headmaster's preferred staff, seeing as one of them has just been sent to Azkaban for stealing from Hogwarts' students, so given that you are one of the ones that the Board will now be watching closely, I would strongly suggest that you take heed of Mister Hagrid's warning to be polite and not cause any trouble Mister Snape, because the Headmaster will not be able to save you if the Board decides to dismiss you, I can assure you of that!"

She looked at him for a minute or so, and when she decided that he understood the way things were now said. "I think he's gotten the message now Mister Hagrid, could you let him go please?"

She nodded grimly when Hagrid looked at her, so he just let Snape go to fall to the floor. Snape was white as a sheet as he limped away as fast as he could while Hagrid and the others went into the Great Hall for dinner, banishing all the portraits near the High Table so that they could talk in private.

Of course, as soon as Dumbledore returned and Snape whined to him he summoned everyone to his office and screamed at them, telling Hagrid that he was most definitely _not_ Hogwarts' Caretaker and that nothing could be done for him when Professor Snape quite rightly had him charged with attacking him. It was at this point that Griselda Marchbanks, Augusta Longbottom, Amelia Bones, Cyrus Greengrass and the other Hogwarts Board members in their group walked into the Headmaster's office. It had been agreed that Amelia would be their spokesperson, so she started in on Dumbledore. "It's about time you appeared Headmaster, where were you when you were called to answer the charges against you at Argus Filch's trial?"

"What? You can't charge me with anything, I am the Chief Warlock!"

"Not when you're acting as the Headmaster of Hogwarts you're not! Haven't you ever heard of separation of duties? For your information, the Wizengamot decided to let the Board determine your fate, so with that I must change _my_ hat from Director of the DMLE to a Hogwarts Board member… Albus Dumbledore, the Hogwarts Board has fined you a thousand galleons for each instance of you knowingly allowing Argus Filch to steal a House Heirloom from a student of Hogwarts, as accepted by the Wizengamot court. The total fine levied against you was forty seven thousand galleons. Furthermore, you have been placed on probation until the end of the school year with Professor McGonagall overseeing all your actions and reporting to us. That probation will be reviewed at the end of the year, at which time the available options will be that the probation may be lifted, it may be extended by whatever period the Board deems appropriate, or your employment at Hogwarts may be terminated if your behaviour is found to merit that action. Do you understand the penalties imposed by the Hogwarts Board?"

"You can't do this! I will appeal this decision!"

"Just who do you think you can appeal to? This decision has been agreed by the majority of the Hogwarts Board, and we can and will do what I said if you give us a reason to! Don't test us Headmaster!"

Dumbledore obviously wanted to scream at her, but bit his tongue.

"Now, we have been advised that you have attempted to revoke our appointment of Mister Hagrid to take on the Caretaker role in addition to his other duties…. This is your one and only warning Headmaster, do _not_ try anything of that nature again! One of the terms of your probation is that your rights to hire and fire staff at Hogwarts have been revoked, the Board will do any and all hiring and firing on the advice of the staff, with Professor McGonagall as their spokesperson. From reports received from the students and staff of Hogwarts, and as proven by the behaviour of Argus Filch, Severus Snape and Sybil Trelawney in particular, your ability to select suitable staff for Hogwarts and her students is patently inadequate, therefore you will no longer have any role in these decisions…. We have also voted to overturn Mister Hagrid's unjust expulsion of forty four years ago, so his wand and magic rights have been reinstated and Professor McGonagall and the other professors will be helping him finish his education. While the primary reason for this is the long overdue righting of the wrongs done to him, by you among others, being able to use magic will also allow him to perform his duties more effectively, because what kind of idiot puts people without magic in charge of maintaining a magical school?"

She turned a cold look on Snape. "Severus Snape! You too are on probation, but you shall be on a much shorter leash than the Headmaster! If the Board receives even one more report of abuse of students, favouritism, discrimination or even failure to teach appropriately, you will be dismissed. Your right to give or take points or assign detentions has been revoked, effective immediately, if you believe that there is a strong need to assign points or detentions you must make a case to Professor McGonagall and she will determine whether your case is merited or not. The reports of your teaching ability make it apparent that you are not devoting enough time or effort to teaching, so effective immediately you are no longer House Master of Slytherin, your role is purely professor of potions and you will devote your time and effort to that role. On the advice of the other heads of house, Professor Vector is now House Mistress of Slytherin at Hogwarts, the Headmaster will announce this when the students return to Hogwarts, along with the other changes. One other thing Mister Snape, Mister Hagrid agreed to take on the Caretaker's role at the _request_ of the Hogwarts Board. You should know that the Board values him over you so if we hear of any more incidents of you deriding Mister Hagrid or treating him as your inferior you will be dismissed immediately! Do you understand what I have told you Mister Snape?"

He sneered at her, but quickly discovered why most of the wizards in Magical Britain were afraid of this witch when she was suddenly right in his face and her expression almost made him lose control of his bladder. "I asked you if you understood? I warn you Snape, the only one in this office who believes that there is any such thing as a _reformed_ Death Eater is the Headmaster! I'm watching you, and so is just about everyone else! Now for the last time! Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes! Yes I understand!"

Amelia nodded at him. "Good!" then turned back to Dumbledore. "A few final points Headmaster. If you want to have any chance of surviving this probation, you will either get that drunken sot Trelawney dried out and teaching something worthwhile in Divination, or get rid of her and scrap that useless course altogether so we can replace it with one of the worthwhile courses that the students and the Board have been requesting for years.… If we hear that she's been seen drunk during school hours again, especially in the classroom, she's gone and we'll vote for the new course. You will also get Binns out of here and replace him with a living teacher who will teach the _proper_ curriculum to get the students through their exams, rather than just repeating the damned Goblin Rebellions over and over again, and you will get the Muggle Studies course updated to teach students something relevant, rather than material which is over a century out of date, and have it taught by a Muggleborn or at least Muggle- _raised_ teacher, it is unacceptable to have a course taught by someone with no real knowledge of the subject matter! Do you understand what is required of you Headmaster?"

Dumbledore had learned his lesson on this at least. "Yes Madam Bones."

She nodded again and looked at the other Board members. "Is there anything else I've forgotten?"

They looked at each other and Cyrus Greengrass spoke up. "What about the fact that the DMLE will be coming through to search for more stolen Heirlooms, pointing out to the Headmaster that anything that could possibly qualify as criminal activity _must_ be reported to the DMLE for _them_ to determine whether they will take it over or allow it to be handled as an internal matter, the fact that Professor McGonagall will have overriding authority on all punishments because of the Headmaster's history of showing excessive leniency to bullies, and the fact that the students need brooms that won't kill them rather than gold plates, so those damned plates need to be sold off to get the money to buy new school brooms that are suitable and safe for beginners. "

"Thank you Lord Greengrass, I had forgotten those points as I was concentrating on what I told him… Did you get all of those Headmaster, or do I need to repeat them… No, actually we don't have time for that. I am certain that Professor McGonagall got them all?"

Minerva nodded. "So she can remind you when you're going over things with her in your daily business meetings…. Oh yes, you will ensure that Professor McGonagall has full access to the Headmaster's office at all times and that the floo in her office has the same functions as your's Headmaster..." She cut Dumbledore off when he went to argue. "That _wasn't_ a request! Do as you're told or you won't make it to the end of the year Headmaster!... Professors, Mister Hagrid, Mister Snape, I do hope that our next discussion will be more pleasant because improvements have been made. Good day."

With that, the Board members all left by Dumbledore's floo, he was still reeling so it didn't occur to him to wonder that they hadn't arrived that way.

* * *

When the students returned a few days later, few of the changes were obvious until Dumbledore got up to make the announcements. He looked as though he'd sucked a lemon when nearly the entire school cheered when he announced that Filch had left, and didn't look much happier that the cheers for Hagrid taking over were at least two thirds as loud. His aggravation continued when he announced that Professor Snape had given up being head of Slytherin to concentrate on improving the Potions course, because well over three quarters of the school cheered louder than before. The interesting part of that was that a notable number of Slytherins joined in. The response for Professor Vector was more muted and polite, because few of the students knew her well enough to get worked up about it.

The response to the news of Bins' departure wasn't as loud as Minerva had expected but Pomona snorted beside her and pointed out that most of the students had enjoyed having a nap in his classes, and the brighter ones would have worked out that History of Magic becoming a real class would mean that they were going to have to work a lot harder to catch up. She snorted again at Minerva's disapproving look as she took that in and said "What was the Hat doing, putting you in Gryffindor Minerva? You're a Ravenclaw through and through."

There was obvious disappointment that the Divination elective had been cancelled, and that Muggle Studies was getting a major revision to make it a serious course teaching contemporary Muggle technology and culture, though many of the Muggleborn students were excited about the new Culture of Magic course that was to replace Divination, and the fact that Muggle Studies would actually teach something relevant. Minerva just looked at Pomona, who shrugged. "It's much like History of Magic Minerva, those electives were easy ways to get an OWL without much work, and a NEWT if they went on. Now, the easy OWLs are gone as Culture of Magic will be a serious course, as will Muggle Studies once it's revised, though students from Magical families should know much of the material in Culture of Magic, and Muggleborn and Muggle-raised students should know much of what's in a real Muggle Studies course, and on top of that they'll have to catch up, just like they will in History of Magic…. It's only the ones who actually want to learn something who will welcome these changes, and you know as well as I do how common _that_ is."

It was Minerva's turn to snort. "Yes, _those_ students are few and far between, but hopefully the others will appreciate it later on when they realise that what we made them learn actually helped them."

Pomona chuckled. " _Much_ later on."

Filius nodded with a chuckle as he listened in, as did their new House Mistress for Slytherin, Septima Vector.

When Dumbledore went to sit down without finishing the announcements, Minerva hissed at him to tell the students that the days of leniency were finished, so unacceptable behaviour _would_ be punished. He got his back up and told her to tell them herself, seeing as she was trying to take his job from him. He glared at Pomona when she smiled, saying. "Ooh I can't wait to see the Board's reaction when you report _this_ to them Minerva! I thought he told Madam Bones that he understood the terms of his probation? By the way, do you have full access to the Headmaster's office yet?"

Minerva had an angry gleam in her eye as she responded. "No! I was locked out when he had Severus in there yesterday!"

Dumbledore tried his old tricks. "Now Minerva, I was having a private discussion with Severus, I couldn't have you barging in!"

He suddenly found out that the mild mannered Mistress of Hufflepuff had serious backbone when Pomona spat at him, not bothering to keep her voice down. "You don't get to have _private_ discussions in the Headmaster's office Albus! You were ordered by the Board to give Minerva _full_ _access at all times_ because she has oversight of _all_ your activities! What part of that don't you understand? Have you forgotten Madam Bones telling you what would happen if you don't do as you're told? For that matter I am formally advising you that Hogwarts rules about interactions with students _will_ be observed from now on. Students will be disciplined by their Head of House and you as Headmaster will _only_ be involved when the case has escalated to the point where their remaining at Hogwarts is under debate. In those instances their Head of House _will_ be present at all times. Do you understand?"

His kindly grandfather façade cracked as he glared at her, how dare she speak to him in this manner?

"Pack your bags woman! I will not take such disrespect from my staff!"

He was cut off by Minerva's bitter laugh. "Apparently you have forgotten that you no longer have any say in hiring or firing staff at Hogwarts _Headmaster_. Perhaps it's right, what people are saying about you being spread too thin with all those positions you hold, that being Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards is too much for one wizard to take on. Oh well, we can relieve you on one of those burdens at least, I recall Madam Bones telling you that that was your 'one and only warning', so your attempting to fire Professor Sprout without just cause will definitely see you out the door as soon as we advise the Board of this."

Dumbledore went white. He couldn't allow that to happen! Even with the Potter boy gone he still had the Longbottom boy who could qualify as the child of prophecy but he had to be here to shape the boy when he arrived, the compulsions on his grandmother to ensure that he would be afraid of his own shadow so that he wouldn't learn anything useful were only the framework, there was a lot more work to be done to make sure the boy did as he was told so he needed to be here, and to do that he'd have to placate these bitches. "No stop, please! I didn't know what I was saying! It's just been so much to take in over the past few days and I'm afraid that my temper got the best of me. I'm so sorry Pomona, surely you know that I didn't mean that?"

Pomona turned to Minerva to avoid laughing in his face, the stupid old bastard couldn't really believe that she'd fall for his twinkling eye trick, could he? "What do you think Minerva? After all you are the one the Board has given responsibility for overseeing the Headmaster's actions."

"But you were the one who he insulted Pomona, so the decision as to give him another chance or report his actions to the Board should be your's."

Pomona nodded thoughtfully as she turned back to Dumbledore. "Alright Headmaster, this is your one and only warning from _me_! If you _ever_ try that again with any of the staff, we'll make sure that the Board has you out of here so fast that your head will spin. You will ensure that Minerva has all the accesses that the Board ordered you to give her before the hour is out, and you will allow Minerva and Filius to examine any and all measures you've taken to ensure that that access can't be revoked if you want to have a 'private discussion' with anyone. As I told you before, you will _not_ have any 'private discussions' in the Headmaster's office as that is a place for official Hogwarts business, and under the Board's orders it is Minerva's responsibility to oversee that. As mentioned earlier, Hogwarts rules _will_ be applied for any and all interactions with students, so you will never have _a_ _ny_ student alone with you, at a bare minimum the student's head of house must also be present. Now, as per your instructions from Minerva which started this… _get back there and tell the students, the poor children that your pet Death Eater has corrupted especially, that the days of leniency are_ _ **over**_ _, any and all bad behaviour_ _ **will**_ _be punished in accordance with the rules, and if it is severe enough the DMLE will be the ones dealing with it!_ "

Even Minerva and Filius were taken aback by the way Pomona's eyes flashed angrily at Dumbledore because they'd never seen their old friend like this before. Apparently she had a temper to rival Minerva's buried under the kind character that they all knew and loved, and it left scars when it lashed out. Minerva reached over to take her hand and Pomona nodded to indicate that she was back in control after she'd taken a deep breath. Dumbledore was still standing there, staring at her in shock, but her low, menacing " _Well?_ " sent him scurrying back to the lectern.

Septima looked at Pomona with a troubled gaze, as her comment about the Slytherin students being corrupted by a _Death Eater_ was a forcible reminder of her responsibility to take steps to reverse whatever path he'd set them on. She was grateful of the reminder, but dreaded what she would learn…. For that matter she remembered her own time in Slytherin, and that there had been problems before Snape…. she'd have to talk to the girls in her house because she expected that the old school Purebreds of Noble Houses had told their sons what they had the 'right' to require of girls who's station was below theirs'.

The reaction from the Slytherin table at this announcement was expected, but Minerva and Filius were frowning at the students in their houses who showed anger at this news, even Pomona had a few students who she'd be having words with over that.

* * *

They were leaving the Great Hall when Pomona remembered that she had something else to set in play and made her way to the Hufflepuff table. "Miss Tonks"

When Dora turned to look at her she continued. "Please come to my office as soon as you finish dinner, we have to make arrangements for your detentions for the rest of the year." Dora nodded, saying. "Yes Professor Sprout" and she left, smiling to herself at the storm of questions erupting behind her.

When the questions died down, Dora gave them the story that they'd come up with. A couple of months ago she'd tried to pull off a big prank to get a boy to notice her, but she'd gotten caught by Filch. The filthy old pervert had tried to search her so she showed him all the items she was carrying for the prank to stop him and he confiscated them. Over Christmas, she'd admitted what she'd done to her parents because if they weren't handled properly, the things he'd confiscated from her could cause a lot of damage, but her Dad had written to Professor McGonagall and, as well as asking her to make sure that those items were properly secured, he had asked that she be given detention for the rest of the year to make sure she learned her lesson, so that's what was happening now.

There were the expected comments that that wasn't fair, but when one of the older students scoffed at the idea that a third year like her could have created anything truly dangerous she just looked him in the eye and reminded him that her mother was a daughter of the House of Black. There was some muttering that she'd been disowned, which Dora didn't bother to correct, but in general the reminder that she was descended from the House of Black, which was generally regarded as one of the truly _**Dark**_ houses, was enough to shut everyone up.

* * *

While Dora was settling into the rapidly changing Hogwarts, Hermione was introducing Henry Evans, Harry, to her class at Crawley Primary School. They stuck to a story which was pretty much the truth, that Harry was an orphan and the Grangers had adopted him after he came to their care following an accident. The other kids lost interest in the new boy when they saw that he was a bookworm like Hermione, so it was pretty much just the two of them together most of the time.

The ones who liked to pick on Hermione because she was different quickly learned that Harry wouldn't let anyone hurt her though. The teachers had to change their tune pretty damned smart too after they called the Grangers to the school to have Harry punished for knocking down a number of the older boys who'd tried to pick on her. When Harry told them _exactly_ what had happened in great detail, and at Roger's insistence they got other students in who corroborated Harry's version, rather than the bigger boys' version that the teachers had accepted without question, Roger ripped into them for trying to punish Harry for doing what _they_ were supposed to be doing, protecting their students!

After word got around that the bullies had been punished, some of the other students came up to quietly thank Harry for stopping them and his and Hermione's time at school became a little more pleasant. They did have problems with the Headmaster and some of the teachers though, because they blamed _Harry_ for them getting black marks on their records over the first incident with him at the school, which held back their advancement, but after one was dismissed for unfairly marking him down on all his tests to punish him after that, the other staff decided that it would probably be safer to leave him and Hermione alone, at school anyway. (Roger had taken Harry's tests to the Department of Education to have them confirm what Harry's perfect memory had told him, that his correct answers had mostly been marked wrong, and point out that this teacher had already been officially reprimanded over her actions in an earlier incident involving Harry. After the hearing, the Department of Education decided to make an example of the bitter old woman to put other teachers on notice that this type of behaviour would not be tolerated, so she was fired.)

It was stupid really, because Harry and Hermione were the school's star students and their results were impressive enough to actually improve its reputation, but the Headmaster and two others who had been reprimanded had chosen to blame a six year old child for what had happened when _they_ failed to control the bullies in their school.

After the first teacher was fired, the other teachers and parents of the bullies tried to blacklist the Grangers' dental practice. This made Roger and Jean laugh at how pathetic they were, but it also pissed them off so Ted, as a 'concerned parent', wrote to the local paper about it, telling them everything that had happened, and how the guilty parties were now trying to interfere with the livelihoods of two upstanding people who's only 'crime' was to take in and care for a lovely boy after he had been orphaned.

The upshot of the article in the paper (the facts of the matter were easily confirmed) was that as there wasn't enough direct evidence to fire them, the Headmaster and the other teacher involved were both transferred to rather less prestigious schools at the other end of London, which meant that they had to move closer to the schools to get to work, and the families of the ring leaders of the bullies were laughed out of town too. Roger's joke about "Don't mess with a dentist!" when people asked how he'd achieved this became something of a catch phrase that caused a lot of laughter when it was repeated around town.

* * *

Aside from the problems with bullies, Harry and Hermione were having the time of their lives, they spent half an hour before school exercising and an hour after school learning about magic (mainly goblin and elf magic as their magic was changing and growing too much for them to match with wands yet) at Potter Manor most days, and spent most weekends there as well. The other children of the Guiding Families, Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Luna Lovegood and Daphne and Astoria Greengrass also spent quite a bit of time at Potter Manor.

Roger and Jean could understand why the kids loved Potter Manor so much, they did too because it was a wonderland. The manor house itself was more magnificent than anything they'd ever seen, in person _or_ in pictures. It was set in a picturesque valley with rolling hills and a river that meandered down to the loch, where there was a damned _castle_ on an island that was separated from the shore by a _drawbridge_. Remus had told them that this was Bran Holm, and that it had been the family seat before they built the manor house.

And it wasn't just the scenery that was incredible, there were unicorns, thestrals (he was of mixed feelings about being able to see them, as they were remarkable but it was a stark reminder of the people he saw killed in the engagements he was in during his time in the Territorial Army. He was so glad when his time there was up, he'd gotten far more of the excitement that he signed up for when he was young and stupid than he'd ever wanted), hypogriffs, griffins, dire wolves and _dragons_ , because the goblins spelled their dragons at the Potter Estate so that they could get some time out in the sun and wind. How could the kids _not_ love being in such a magical place as this? It was apparently the only place in the British Isles what was well enough warded for creatures like these to roam freely without any risk of being discovered. It was also the home of a fair few goblins, elves and centaurs, and the unique Potter familiars, the Mngwa and Bennu.

The Mngwa had two forms, one looked like a large tabby cat with dark brindled fur, but the other was a ferocious donkey sized panther like creature with the same colouring. Mngwa were considered XXXXX creatures by most, like the Nundus they were related to, because nearly all encounters with Mngwa were fatal, but Henry Potter had picked up some Mngwa cubs while exploring in Africa back around the turn of the century and they had bonded to the Potter line. Once they'd bonded with a Potter, they were generally fine around their friends and family, and in fact anyone who didn't have ill intent towards their master or mistress, but they were fierce protectors and few things could stand against them.

Henry had also found the Bennu in Africa, in Egypt actually. They had the appearance of a shorter legged Great Egret and were related to the Phoenix. Some said that they were the predecessors of the Phoenix, some said that they were a parallel line, but the important thing was that they shared all the Phoenix's qualities, always female, being reborn in fire, having their own form of apparation that could be used for others (though the Bennu transport it wasn't a fiery as the Phoenix one), able to carry people holding their tails, healing tears and the like. The Bennu did have a couple of extra tricks over the Phoenix though, they could cough/spit fireballs that were as hot as dragon flame at an enemy, _and_ they spoke human and other languages. The Bennu were exceedingly intelligent and became great companions to the ones they bonded with, and in the Potter family it was common for a Mngwa _and_ a Bennu to bond with the same master, this allowed the Bennu to transport the Mngwa to their master if they needed help.

The first time Harry went to Potter Manor, _his_ familiars (Crookshanks, the Mngwa and Hedwig, the Bennu) recognised him as soon as he appeared within the wards and sought him out to bond with him (Crookshanks was a juvenile like Harry, but he was still quite capable of being a protector in his Mngwa form), but there was a strange development in that Crookshanks and Hedwig didn't just tolerate Hermione as someone connected to Harry, they bonded to _her_ as well as Harry! There was considerable debate in the 'family' about how this had come about, but no-one could really explain it (well Andi and Gringott knew how it happened because Hedwig had confirmed it when Andi asked, but none of them were going to discuss it with anyone else).

* * *

Minerva and the others were disappointed that the Marauders' Map didn't reveal Pettigrew when they found it, but they kept checking it regularly, in hope that he would turn up. Meanwhile, they were busy getting the changed Hogwarts settled down and working well.

As expected with a predominance of arrogant, over-privileged Purebloods in Hogwarts' student population, they had to make an example of a few of them before the others accepted the fact that they _would_ be punished if they ignored the rules and continued to do whatever they felt like. As expected, their families tried to use political pressure to have their sons' (and daughters, but mainly sons) punishments overturned, but while they generally managed to get the criminal charges dropped, they came up against a brick wall when the controlling block of the Hogwarts Board of Governors from the guiding families said that the Hogwarts rules were quite clear and immutable.

Most of the ones who were cast out of Hogwarts ended up going to Durmstrang, because the half giantess who was Beauxbatons' new headmistress apparently knew and agreed with the ones at Hogwarts who had pushed for their expulsion. Dumbledore lost some of the limited number of supporters he had left when he failed to have their children's expulsions overturned, so he was one of the small number of hold outs against the growing enthusiasm with the direction Hogwarts was going in. Mind you, the fact that his pet Death Eater hadn't even lasted a month before getting himself fired for trying to cover up evidence of an attack against a couple of Muggleborn Second Years by some older Slytherins could have explained some of Dumbledore's anger and bitterness.

Albus was worried, because Severus had been his last supporter at Hogwarts, even Fawkes was disappearing without notice for longer and longer periods. He was also furious that it was Lucius Malfoy who had taken Severus in, giving him both a home and a job, because that would put Severus out of his reach when Tom returned… as he had made it quite clear that he felt no compulsion to assist him if he could no longer protect him as per their agreement.

He couldn't work out why nearly everyone had suddenly turned against him like this, Minerva and Alastor had been the biggest blows, but most of the others who had been part of the Order of the Phoenix in the war had turned their backs on him too, he was left with nothing but the dregs now…. Was it those hideous stories that that Skeeter woman made up about him? No, she'd made up stories about him before…. There had to be something else going on, and he was sure that it wasn't happen-stance, that someone was behind it….

* * *

Oh no, it couldn't be _him_ could it? Alas, that was the only thing that made any sense... Tom's people must have somehow got past his protections at the Dursleys... no, they probably tracked down Petunia's husband away from the home and and took control of him to make _him_ do it! But what had they used Harry for? Some kind of ritual obviously, perhaps to bind Tom's shade into a host to bring him back... He had been hoping for another decade to properly prepare his champion for the confrontation that was to come but it looked as though Tom had taken that option away from him now.

But where could Tom be? No-one in any position to do anything at the moment was making any moves, well things were happening at the school but that was all obviously coming from outside… That's it! Tom must be infiltrating the school to build an army again!

But the only new teachers they had were that Muggleborn witch for Muggle Studies, Bathilda Bagshot for History of Magic and Culture of Magic and Horace Slughorn back for Potions, and none of them could be running a recruitment drive for Tom… No, it must be a student, but who could it be?

Of course! The Tonks girl! She had been a quiet little thing, a stereotype Huffepuff, and then all of a sudden she gets caught with dangerous dark objects which she was supposedly going to use for a _prank?_ He'd also heard that she'd been heard threatening other students with the fact that she was from the House of Black….

Oh, well played Tom! A pretty young girl who can use her body to enlist young wizards to your cause, _and_ she can use the fact that she's from the same house as your strongest supporters to help sway the ones that sex won't work for. She's old enough to use her body as a bribe but young enough spend years here building up your army for you…. yes, you couldn't have chosen a more perfect host Tom….. But I'm afraid that I'm going to have to turn the tables on you and get rid of that host, I need time to prepare for you….

Now who do I have that I can use against Tom's new host? Damnit, I've lost most of my supporters who have sons that would be suitable…. But wait... yes, Molly Weasley has two sons here… Charles is in the same year as the girl but he's too young to suddenly start playing a ladies man believably. No, William is a better choice, he's two years older, he's also popular with the other students, in fact I hear that many of the female students fancy him so he'll be perfectly believable as a ladies man.

After everything he'd had to do to cover up the boy's mother's mistakes, she'd do whatever was necessary to get the boy to cooperate, or else! He'd had to obliviate Arthur hundreds of times when he caught her out or began to suspect what was going on… Hells, he'd had to start covering up for her before she even finished at Hogwarts, because people had found out that she'd used love potions on Arthur to snare him... maybe if she'd spent as much time researching his family as she did making those potions she would have discovered that the Weasley fortune was all gone by then.

At least he hadn't had to do much more than occasionally obliviate Arthur over the next four or five years and it was starting to look like she was settling down, she and Arthur had two fine boys and Arthur's prospects at the Ministry were looking better, but then the stupid little trollop had to set her sights on Barty Crouch, never mind the fact that she and he were _both_ married with children! Memory charming Arthur to make him believe that the new baby was his and obliviating everyone who saw her trying to convince Barty to leave his wife and son for her and their baby had exhausted him, so in the end he'd made her handle Arthur herself. It probably would have been better to instruct her on what to use for that though because having a bright, powerful wizard suddenly turn into a bumbling fool like that had made a lot of people question what was going on, and that required _far_ too much effort to cover up. Of course, Molly had been the only one who was surprised when Barty told her that he wanted nothing to do with her and her son but she fell apart and he was too busy covering up evidence of her to deal with Arthur so they just left him on the potions. By the time she was finally back on something like an even keel, Arthur had been like this for a couple of years and it would have just started all the questions again if he changed back to himself so once again they left him on the potions.

He thought that things would settle down after she had the twins to Arthur, but then she decided to go after Cornelius Fudge! Barty he could understand to a degree because the man was a powerful and intelligent wizard, but Fudge? And of course, while Fudge was an idiot, he was a political idiot and knew that a scandal of that nature would end his aspirations for the Minister's office, so he did the same thing as Barty had and there was another couple of years of cleaning up after her.

It was her last effort that made all the previous ones pale into insignificance though, because the stupid bint went after Barty again! This time she had to use the same type of love, fertility and loyalty potions that she'd used on Arthur at Hogwarts because she'd lost the looks she'd had when she was in her early twenties. To make matters worse, she had a daughter this time, when there hadn't been anything but boys in the Weasley family for at least three generations. That had been one hell of a mess to clean up!

Oh yes, Molly Weasley owed him, and she'd make sure that her son did as he was told or _all_ of her secrets would come out! She and their family were far less important to him than dealing with this host of Tom's and as stupid as the woman was, she knew what would happen to them if she failed him in this. At least her one talent would be useful here, because she was quite capable of brewing all the potions they'd need to turn Tom's host into William's willing slave, in fact he'd let William use the host's body as he wished until they got rid of it as his payment for this, after all it was nothing more than a vessel for Tom now.

 **A/N: I realise that I've used the Mngwa before but I love the idea of a cat that can transform into a fierce protector. I came across them when I was looking for a dangerous animagus form. As noted above, the Bennu are an Egyptian Heron version of the Phoenix, so I thought I'd make them the other Potter familiars. ;^)**


	4. House of Cards

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.**

Molly Weasley was no fool, even if her overwhelming need for instant gratification made her do stupid things all too often, so she immediately promised to convince William ( _William_? Dumbledore could be excused for not knowing that Bill's name was actually _Bilius_ because he regarded him as beneath his notice, but his own mother?) to cooperate and work with them on this, but pointed out that she'd need a little time to talk him around properly and it would be suspicious if she took him out of school without a good reason. Dumbledore grumbled about the delay, but agreed that it would cause less suspicion if they waited until the Easter break to have him come home. He _did_ warn her that she better make sure that she had the ingredients ready to make the first batch of potions for Miss Tonks by then so that William could bring the potions back to Hogwarts with him after the break or else though.

Convincing Arthur's eldest son that he had to do this for the family took more work than she'd expected, but once she'd gotten past his initial reticence William became the obedient son she expected him to be, and he went back to Hogwarts with the first month's potions for the girl in his trunk. She would have made up more but they wouldn't keep any longer than a month, so she'd have to send parcels of potions to him to keep dosing the girl.

Albus had thought that the look young Mister Weasley sent his way at dinner when he returned to Hogwarts was a little strange, but he put it down as acknowledgement of his task…. Or perhaps it was appreciation for what Molly had told him he could do with the girl once she was under the potions' influence, he couldn't see the attraction himself but then he wasn't interested in females. He would have been rather more worried if he'd seen the two Weasley boys in Minerva's office immediately after dinner, because the first thing Bill did was formally invoke their right for protection under the alliance between the guiding families.

* * *

Minerva froze in shock for a moment, then hastily cast a flurry of privacy and security wards over the office before offering the formal response required for what Bill had invoked.

With that done, Bill relaxed and placed a parcel on Minerva's desk before he and Charlie sat down. "Professor, we have a big problem. Those are potions that my mother has made up to enslave a Hufflepuff Third Year, Nymphadora Tonks, to me…."

He paused, expecting shock and disbelief, but her reaction was controlled anger, not surprise, and she simply said. "Go on Mister Weasley."

Bill spent the next half hour explaining what his mother had instructed him to do, and that he was expected to use the potions to keep Miss Tonks under his control until Professor Dumbledore told him what to do with her. Minerva's anger became rage when Bill shamefacedly told her that he'd been given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to the barely fourteen year old witch while he had her under the potions' control, but she struggled to control herself and assured Bill that she wasn't angry with _him_ , it was that evil old bastard and his foul harridan of a mother that she would be dealing with when she had the chance.

Once they all understood where they stood with each other, Minerva asked the question that had been on her lips since he invoked the protection of the alliance for his brother and himself. "May I ask how you knew the forms to invoke the protection rights as you did Mister Weasley? I didn't know that your father was aware of the House of Weasley's rights under the alliance."

Bill grimaced. "I'm not sure that Dad _is_ aware of our House's rights Professor, in fact I don't really know what he's aware of at all any more since our mother has been keeping him potioned for the last ten years at least."

That just got a raised eyebrow so he went on. "Dad isn't the man he was when Charlie and I were little Professor, back then he was full of fire and could talk at length on just about anything, but after our brother Percy was born, Dad…. changed. He became much less than he was before, like he was only an empty shell of the wizard he'd been. Mum was watching us real close at the time so I convinced Charlie to play a game where we acted like nothing was wrong. We were hoping that Dad would come back to us, but he didn't, he just sat there with dull eyes and did whatever Mum said and that's the way he's been ever since then. Professor Dumbledore came around a lot and we could hear them shouting at each other, I guess they thought at not yet six and four we wouldn't understand or remember anything so it wasn't worth the effort to put up silencing spells..." He shook his head.

"Even when he was a baby, we could tell that Percy wasn't really like us, but a couple of years later the twins were born and we instantly knew that they _were_ our brothers…. The next one who came along though, Ronnie, he's _nothing_ like us, I don't think he really does anything but eat and shit and he was so lazy that he was two before Mum managed to potty train him, I actually think Ginny beat him, but _she_ isn't a Weasley either.… We know that our Mum's been screwing other wizards, the fact that we have two brothers and a sister who aren't Dad's is proof of that! We also know that she's been keeping Dad dosed with potions to keep him under control ever since Percy was born and Professor Dumbledore's been helping her. That's why we didn't know who we could trust…."

"Charlie and I have been researching our house ever since we came to Hogwarts, trying to find someone who could help us save Dad and the twins, we discovered that the House of Weasley was a Noble and Most Ancient House so we looked into the rights of the Most Ancient Houses. That was how we found out about the Alliance and that the House of Ross was also part of the Alliance because it was also a Noble and Most Ancient House but…. I'm sorry professor, I don't know any nice way to say this but we didn't know whether we could trust you because you always seemed to do whatever Professor Dumbledore told you to."

Minerva shook her head sadly. "Don't apologise Mister Weasley, I have to admit that I've had a rude awakening in the last six months, but I _was_ largely under the Headmaster's control before I was made to accept what he had done to me and many people I cared about. It is I who should apologise to you for the fact that you had to be desperate about this latest piece of depravity that the Headmaster is orchestrating before you came to me…. Now if you don't mind, I would like your permission to bring in another member of the Guiding Family Alliance, Madam Bones, because she is better placed to do something about this business than I am, will you allow this?"

Bill and Charlie nodded. "Yes professor, of course!"

* * *

She thanked them and went into her chambers to use the goblin floo, coming back fifteen minutes later with a disturbed looking Amelia Bones. Minerva had Bill repeat what he'd told her for Amelia, and by then end of the story, Amelia was looking at the parcel on Minerva's desk as if it were a steaming heap of dragon dung. She sighed, saying. "Minerva, I believe that we need the Council together at the Manor to discuss this. Ask Pomona to bring Dora and you bring our young heroes here please, I need to find someone who can tell me what exactly is in _this_." as she picked up the parcel with an expression of distaste.

Minerva nodded, waving the boys to their feet, but said. "Wouldn't Pandora be the best one to examine those potions Amelia? She's at least as good as anyone you'd find at the Ministry at this time of night and she'll be more discreet." Amelia slapped herself on the head. "Of course! Sorry Minnie, I should have thought of Pandora but this business has really thrown me off my game." With that she dashed through the door into Minerva's chambers and was gone by the time the others arrived.

When they were assembled with Dora and Gringott in the sitting room at Potter Manor, Minerva addressed the looks being sent Bill and Charlie's way. "Mister Weasley and his brother came to me tonight, claiming protection under the rights of the Guiding Families Alliance, to warn us of a new plot that Albus Dumbledore has cooked up, one that is targeting Dora."

As before, she handed over to Bill to explain what they'd come to her about, and to answer the inevitable questions about how he'd known about the House of Weasley's rights under the Alliance and why it wasn't his father bringing this to them.

Amelia and Pandora arrived while Bill was telling the story, and when he was done they filled the others in on what exactly was in the potions that Bill was supposed to dose Dora with. Everyone one the room was white (whether it be with shock, fear or rage) after hearing that, and they had to physically hold Andi back when she tried to rush off to remove the stains of Molly Weasley and Albus Dumbledore from the face of the planet. It took a while for Amelia and Pandora screaming in her face that they would protect Dora to get through to Andi, so that she could calm down enough to listen.

Gringott reminded them that they had an advantage in that in the Goblin Nation, whatever was needed _was_ done, no matter what time it was, so Andi, Ted, Pandora and Dora went through to Gringotts with him to get things started on what they were going to set up to protect Dora, then he returned.

* * *

Bill and Charley were shocked when Gringott was formally introduced, because while they'd picked up on the fact that he was an important goblin, they had no clue that he was the head of the British Goblins and all the Gringotts Banks. What he proposed after introductions were done shocked them almost as much though. "Bilius Arthurus Weasley and Charlus Prewett Weasley, you are obviously intelligent and astute young wizards, and you yourself have brought us the news that the current Head of the House of Weasley has been rendered unfit to lead his house through the actions of your mother, Molly Muriel Weasley, nee Prewett. Are either of you currently aware of the fact that your parents' marriage was structured to allow for the continuation of both the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley and the Noble House of Prewett through you and your siblings?"

They looked at each other then Bill responded formally. "No Director Gringott, we were not aware of this."

Gringott nodded. "I didn't think so. The way the agreements were structured, the children of the marriage of Arthurus Septimus Weasley and Molly Muriel Prewett alternate between the Houses of Weasley and Prewett, so you, Bilius, are the Heir to the titles of Lord Weasley and Head the House of Weasley, while you, Charlus, are Lord Prewett, Head of the House of Prewett…."

He smiled as Charlie reacted to that. "Wait… What was that about _me_ being the Head of the House of Prewett?"

"Your Uncle, Fabian Prewett, was the last Lord Prewett Charlus, under the agreements of your parents' marriage, you were the next Prewett born, so you inherited the title and head of house when your Uncle was killed in the war. I take it that none of this was ever discussed with you?"

He nodded approvingly at the controlled anger Charlie showed as he replied. "No Director Gringott, it was _not_. This is the first that I've even heard that I am of the Prewett line, rather than the Weasley line."

Gringott thought to himself that with ones like these Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione and Dora as part of the next generation, there may be hope for their world yet.

"I believe that it would be in both your, and Magical Britain's interests for you to formally claim your titles Lord Prewett, and also to revoke any and all existing proxy allocations for the House of Prewett..."

Charlie growled "Dumbledore?" and Gringott nodded before turning to Bill.

"Bilius, the situation with you is slightly more complicated, but only slightly. As I have said, you are currently Heir to the title of Lord Weasley and Head of the House of Weasley, however your father has never formally claimed his titles…. I believe that this is because he had already been rendered unfit to lead his house by your mother when his Uncle, Lord Bilius Weasley, died, passing the responsibility of Head of House on to him. Given that we have ample evidence between us to support the fact that your father is currently unfit to claim the titles of Lord Weasley and Head of the House of Weasley. I would advise that because of the current political situation, you have the Council of Wizards rule that the titles be passed on to you by reason of incapacitation."

Bill just looked at him. "I presume that the people here can do that as the Council of Wizards?"

Gringott nodded. "So you want me to take everything from my father because he's potioned to his eyeballs at the moment and can't do as you ask?"

Gringott gave a goblin smile, this young man had backbone! "No, I'm asking you to temporarily at least assume your place as the Head of the House of Weasley so that others can't use the power of your house to their own ends _while_ your father is incapacitated. If you wish, you can transfer the titles back to him after we have managed to help your father regain his faculties."

Bill looked around the assembled people, Madam Longbottom catching his eye so he turned back to Gringott. "And what of Lord Longbottom? Are you going to transfer his titles to his son as well?"

"No, for a start Dowager Longbottom is Regent for the House of Longbottom as Heir Longbottom is currently six, rather than sixteen…. and more importantly, Lord and Lady Longbottom were surreptitiously removed from Saint Mungo's when Lord Potter returned to our world and they have been under the care of the goblins' healers since then. Lord Longbottom is legally competent to take up his position again, it is only his physical recovery which is restraining him from making his return known, that and the fact that we're waiting for the most opportune time to make use of the surprise that his return will generate."

Bill was nodding thoughtfully, thinking that the powers that be had done a good job of keeping the fact that they'd lost the Longbottoms quiet, but there had been something much bigger in what the goblin had just said. "What do you mean Lord Potter's return? Harry Potter died before Yule."

That earned him another toothy goblin smile. "No Mister Weasley, he did not! His Muggle relatives might have killed him if he hadn't escaped by apparating across London, but I can assure you that he is alive and well and learning how to take his place in our world. The only reason he isn't here tonight is that he is still six so he needs his sleep, and he is also too young to hear the more sordid details of this plot. Much like you were at that age apparently, Lord Potter is remarkably mature for his age and he has been working with the rest of the Wizards Council to rectify the atrocities committed by Albus Dumbledore and his kind, of which the one you brought to us tonight is only the latest…."

"By the way, if you take your place as Lord Weasley and work with us as we hope you will, you should be aware that one of Dumbledore's previous atrocities was getting the previous Lord and Lady Potter murdered and throwing Heir Black into Azkaban without a trial after framing him for that act. It is quite likely that Lord Longbottom's announcement that he has recovered will be at Heir Black's trial…."

He muttered "As soon as we can find where the Rat is hiding!" under his breath, which made Bill ask. "What rat are you referring to Director Gringott?"

Gringott took a moment to register what he said and then shook his head. "Sorry, I was talking to myself. I am referring to Peter Pettigrew, the actual betrayer of the Potters to Riddle..." he waved away the question of who Riddle was, saying "Voldemort! Anyway, Pettigrew cut off his finger and disappeared in his animagus form to frame Sirius Black for the murder of him and those Muggles, and we believe that he's hiding somewhere in Britain in either his human or animagus form."

"And what is his animagus form?"

"A grey rat, which should now be missing one claw from its left front paw."

Bill and Charlie turned to stare at each other in shock, and then Bill turned back to Gringott and asked in a strangled voice. "Would you have an image of what this animagus form looks like Director Gringott?"

Gringott looked at him calculatingly and then nodded and snapped something in Goblin to one of the two young goblins who were normally with him (his nephews who were being trained as his successors actually). When the goblin returned, they set up Sirius' memory to play and both Bill and Charlie swore. Bill turned to Gringott and said "I believe that I know where you can find the Rat Director, it should be at our house because unless I'm mistaken it's been our brother Percy's pet for the last four or five years." Gringott looked at Charlie for confirmation and he nodded grimly, but shuddered at the smile that came over Gringott's face.

Bill had a similar reaction but squared his shoulders and asked. "Does this negate the need for me to assume the titles of Lord Weasley and Head of the House of Weasley Director Gringott?"

That earned him an approving smile. "No Mister Weasley, if anything it makes it more urgent, because we want to take every vote possible off Dumbledore before we take Pettigrew and Heir Black to trial. Therefore I must ask the both of you, do you agree to take the titles of Lord and Head of your Houses at this time?"

Bill and Charlie looked at each other and nodded, both saying "I do!"

When Pandora and the Tonks **(that should be the name for a group ;^)** returned, they had enough members of the Wizards Council to vote for Arthur to be ruled as currently unable to serve as Head of his House, and for the titles to pass to Bill, then Bill formally accepted the titles for the House of Weasley and Charlie accepted for the House of Prewett, both of them revoking any and all previous voting proxies and immediately allocating their proxies to Lord Greengrass. The beauty of this was that the Wizengamot records system only acknowledged voting proxy changes to the Head of the House, so previous holders had no notice that they had lost the voting proxies. This meant that Dumbledore still believed that he held the Potter, Weasley and Prewett votes among others when in fact he didn't.

As the luck of the draw had it, there was a regular Wizengamot session scheduled for the following day which Dumbledore had advised he could not attend because of his duties at Hogwarts, so Baroness Marchbanks had been nominated and confirmed as Acting Chief Witch. The list of attending Wizengamot members was just enough to avoid having to cancel it as a general session for handling minor business, but once they added the rest of the Guiding Family seats, there were enough to meet the requirements for a criminal trial, and they were banking on having the votes to carry it. They'd had the evidence ready for Sirius' trial for months, but they'd held off because they wanted to avoid letting Magical Britain discover that Harry was alive. Now though, if they could slip in, grab the rat and slip out without anyone noticing tonight, they'd have everything necessary to try both Pettigrew and Sirius, so that Pettigrew would be punished and Sirius cleared.

* * *

Of course, Dumbledore's 'duties at Hogwarts' were purely to confirm that William Weasley didn't screw up the initial steps of potioning Tom's host, so he would be watching closely to make sure that it all went as planned…. He hated relying on others because they invariably failed him, but he was painfully aware that McGonagall was watching him closely so he couldn't do this himself. He wouldn't be able to get his hands on Tom's host until Weasley took her far enough away from the school to ensure that it wouldn't be seen, so they would need to keep her potioned up enough for the loving couple act to be believable until they left school for the summer break.

What they'd done to prepare Dora for this was the injection of more mind magic skill sets so she could resist Dumbledore's attempts to read her thoughts and the preparation and supply of potions to counter anything like they were trying to use on her, as well as other potions which would simulate the effects but leave her totally in control of herself. She and Bill would have to keep up the act well enough to convince Dumbledore that she actually _was_ under the effect of the potions, but as luck would have it, Dora was in fact one of the many girls at Hogwarts who fancied Bill, so they were confident that they could pull this off.

Once the Weasley household had gone to bed, Balrog and Gamling (Gringott's nephews) slipped in and ensured that they all stayed asleep as they went through the house until they found the rat in Percy's room, they stunned and took the rat, leaving the door ajar to make it look as though it had slipped out itself, which Bill and Charlie said it did often enough that it was unlikely to be questioned. When Pettigrew came to in human form in an interrogation room surrounded by Aurors he panicked, but that didn't stop him spending the next several hours answering questions under Veritaserum and having his memories harvested.

* * *

In the morning, the Guiding Families congregated in the Wizengamot courtroom. Sessions like this were only held to avoid having to reschedule them so most of the Wizengamot members stuck with attending didn't pay any attention to who else was there, they just wanted to get through whatever items there were on the agenda so that they could get on with what they wanted to do that day. It was only when the Chief Witch announced that the session was officially started and that the first item on the agenda was the trial of the marked Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew that they sat up and took notice. Of course, having Lord Longbottom suddenly stand up in the gallery and shake himself as if he'd just woken, bowing to the Chief Witch's seat and saying "My apologies My Lady Chief Witch, I had only thought to take the chance to relax before my first session back on the Wizengamot but I must have fallen asleep, apparently I have not recovered as fully as I believed I had." made them _really_ wonder what was going on.

Griselda nodded regally to him, trying hard not to laugh. "That is quite understandable Lord Longbottom…. May I be the first to welcome you back to the Wizengamot and say that it is good to see you looking so well after your ordeal?"

Frank bowed again. "I thank you for your welcome My Lady, may I take my seat for the session?"

She nodded. "You may My Lord, but to forestall any questions, would you mind verifying your identity for the court?"

Frank nodded. "Surely My Lady" and went to present the Longbottom Head of House ring to the Census Stone, there could be no question of his identity after the stone's voice rang out. **"Earl Francis James Longbottom, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom!"**

As Frank took his seat, it was obvious that many in the chamber were trying to work out how to get word to those they answered to that the Longbottom had returned, and had taken his seat on the Wizengamot. Unfortunately for them, the Acting Chief Witch wasn't about to allow any such departure from procedure. They had no idea what _other_ shocks they'd be in for before this session finished yet either.

Some members tried to argue that they couldn't force Pettigrew to testify under Veritaserum, couldn't use memories in court and generally tried to block the proceedings, but Griselda shut them all down, and when one wizard in desperation claimed that she wasn't qualified to preside over a criminal trial, Frank leapt to his feet to challenge him for casting aspersions on the Chief Witch's competence and honour. That was when someone who they hadn't noticed before stood up. "Have you been cleared to go back to duty as an Auror yet Lord Longbottom?"

Frank smiled as he bowed to Alastor. "Greetings Lord Moody. No, I have not yet made arrangements with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to have myself re-certified as an active Auror."

"Then I am afraid that I must claim primacy in the right to issue this challenge on the basis of my closer familial relation to Lady Marchbanks Lord Longbottom, unless Mister Warren wishes remove the need for said challenge by offering suitable apologies and compensation for the insult to Lady Marchbanks?"

The wizard in question jumped at the chance to do so, he knew that the 'compensation' angle was going to hurt him but while he'd thought that he might stand a chance against someone who was apparently still in recovery at first, he'd forgotten that the Longbottom had actually been an Auror of some note, and _everyone_ knew about 'Mad-Eye Moody', so there was no way he was ever going to stand against _him_.

After that diversion, getting a guilty verdict and life in Azkaban sentence for Pettigrew went quickly. They'd been disappointed to discover that aside from the fact he knew who the Potter's secret keeper actually was because he'd cast the fidelius charm, which he could probably talk his way around, there was no solid evidence against Dumbledore because Pettigrew hadn't contacted him since a week before that fateful night. He'd gone to the Weasley's house because he was banking on the fact that no-one would catch on to what he was in that chaotic household, and that they would be too soft hearted to deny him food.

As Pettigrew was being removed, Amelia called Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to face the court. Pettigrew squealed and wet himself when he came face to face with the one who had been in Azkaban for over five years because of him, but Sirius just gave him a look of distaste and stepped around him.

To remind the ones on the Wizengamot benches of just who they were dealing with, Griselda asked Sirius to also verify his identity and he did so with a smile and a bow. Hearing **"** **Baron** **Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black** **!"** made for a lot of confused faces in the court room, because just about everyone had been sure that he had been disowned, but he couldn't have been if he was Heir Black, which both the ring and the stone had confirmed.

* * *

It took much less time to have Sirius formally announced innocent of all charges, and the Wizengamot had just voted to grant him a compensation payment of four thousand galleons for each month since he was unlawfully incarcerated in an effort to try and get on his good side when the doors of the court room burst open and the Minister for Magic stormed in. She ordered the DMLE people in the court room to arrest Black but Amelia stayed them with a raised hand. "On what charge Minister Bagnold?"

"He is a fugitive from justice, an escapee from Azkaban!"

"Well strictly speaking to be a fugitive from justice, justice must have been first served Minister. When the marked Death Eater Peter Pettigrew was apprehended alive and well, I called for Heir Black's trial records to determine how he could have been found guilty of murdering Peter Pettigrew when he was actually alive, and do you know what I found Minister Bagnold? There _was_ no trial record, because Heir Black was never given a trial, there wasn't even an investigation made into his alleged crimes…. we cast the Prior Incantato on his wand which was still being held in evidence and it displayed none of the blasting or cutting spells we were told were used that day, so even that basic step had been ignored. The only thing of note I found in his file was the order to send Heir Black straight to Azkaban without a trial, which was signed by Bartemius Crouch, Albus Dumbledore, and yourself Minister Bagnold. I believe that you will have to agree that that was highly irregular Minister, especially as Peter Pettigrew has testified under Veritaserum here in court that _he_ was the Potter's secret keeper who betrayed them to his master Voldemort as he is a marked Death Eater, and that Mister Dumbledore _knew_ that he was the secret keeper because he was the one who cast the fidelius charm. So, given that without a trial Heir Black's imprisonment was itself illegal, and the DMLE retrieved him to investigate the issue once the discrepancies in his case were discovered, what possible reason can there be for ordering Heir Black's arrest Minister?"

Bagnold's eyes narrowed and she stepped closer to Amelia, lowering her voice, but she didn't realise that someone had cast a sonorous charm on her, and she got out. " _I'd be_ _very_ _careful about crossing me if I were you Bones.._." before she got over her shock and stopped talking. She knew that it hadn't been Bones who did it because her hands had been in plain view the whole time and she hadn't spoken... _someone_ had just made a big mistake, but all she could do at that point was beat a hasty retreat.

Unfortunately for the Minister, the Daily Prophet's policy was to have reporters at _every_ Wizengamot session just in case some juicy morsels came out, but while that session had been a veritable feast of scandal, the Minister for Magic trying to privately threaten the Director of the DMLE for pointing out the illegality of the incarceration of the Heir to one of the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain was so tantalising that it _still_ made the front page.

Having the threat made that public was the best protection Amelia could have had though, because Bagnold would have been a fool to go after her then, and Millicent Bagnold was no fool.

Amelia was well aware that Bagnold would be doing her best to get rid of her now, but so long as she did everything by the book there was little she could do. And if she _did_ manage to get rid of her… well she had the House of Bones' business to manage and she was legitimately working with known magic aware groups of Her Majesty's government to clear up the werewolf problem and address problems of witches and wizards who'd had to go back to the Non-Magical world because they couldn't make a good enough living in the Magical world, if she lost her position at the Ministry she had a standing offer of a better one in Her Majesty's employ.

* * *

In the Weasley household, it was days before Percy started to get worried about what had happened to his rat Scabbers, because it wasn't unusual for it to hole up somewhere for a few days and then come back when the food ran out. After a week or two his father told him that Scabbers must have run off, and his mother used some of the money she had hidden away to buy him a nice owl so that he could write home more often when he went to Hogwarts in five months or so because she couldn't stand to see her darling boy upset... not when he reminded her so much of his father.

At least Albus had reported that William was doing a good job of keeping that Tonks witch on a short leash… while she certainly wouldn't want _her_ son consorting with the spawn of the House of Black, in her mind William was _Arthur's_ son, not her's (in her heart of hearts, only Percy and Ginny really mattered because they were Barty's) so she was happy that he was keeping Albus appeased.

Bill and Dora were actually having a good time putting on the act for Dumbledore, Minerva had had a talk to Bill, reminding him that this was all an act and he was to treat Dora with respect, but the hurt he showed at that made her ashamed of herself. Bill told her that he was well aware that this thing with _Dumbledore_ was an act, but his respect, admiration and affection for Dora was _not_ an act! They'd actually found that they shared a deep interest in the more challenging aspects of magic, and their excitement over what they were discussing looked to Dumbledore and others to be the sexual excitement he was expecting to see, so he was quite pleased with how well his plan was working.

Given that this was the _only_ thing that had gone to plan for him of late, Dumbledore found that he was watching William and Tom's host quite a bit, and this in turn led to having doubts about William. Tom's host was behaving as expected for the potions that she was being dosed with, but William almost seemed to be behaving the same way…. No, he was doubtless looking too hard for problems after that debacle with Black and the new round of slanderous articles being written by that Skeeter witch, and if there _was_ an element of attraction for Tom's host in William, well the potions were his mother's creation, and knowing Molly she had probably added something into the potions she created to increase her own excitement. After all, if she could have held back from being such a harlot and focussed on her studies when she was at Hogwarts, Molly could have become one of the foremost potions masters of her time, so seeing creative potions from her shouldn't be a surprise.

For that matter, the lambasting he'd gotten from Bagnold over that mess had made his ears ring for two days, but it was hardly _his_ fault that she'd been stupid enough to get herself caught trying to threaten Bones when Bones pointed out that there wasn't a thing that could be done about Black, was it? He'd almost pointed out that he'd advised _against_ Bones being given her current position on the basis that she was too diligent and unyielding on matters of law, but had caught himself just in time.

* * *

While recent events hadn't been at all kind to Albus Dumbledore, by and large they'd worked out pretty well for Sirius Black. Once he'd been officially cleared of all charges and was free to rejoin society, his grandfather Arcturus had asked to see him and they'd had an interesting discussion. The key point of this discussion was that his grandfather wanted him to take more of an interest in running the House of Black's affairs, because it would be his responsibility once he became Lord Black. To this end he bequeathed a number of significant properties and businesses that were currently in bad shape to Sirius and charged him with turning them around. One of these showed Sirius where he'd gotten his…. distinct…. sense of humour from, because it was the Black's London Townhouse in Grimmauld Place that Sirius had grown up in. While Sirius didn't want to have anything to do with it, it was traditionally the home of the Black Heir, so his grandfather was laying down a challenge.

It frustrated Sirius a little that he couldn't force his grandfather to put conditions on what he could do with these properties and businesses to make them work so that he could turn the challenge down without conceding defeat. He started with what he thought would be an easy win, the fact that he'd already formally named _his_ heir and he was a Half-Blood of another House. Arcturus laughed, saying that Harry's grandmother Dorea was a worthy daughter of the House of Black and Lily Potter had been one of the brightest and best witches of the century. He was intrigued when Sirius laughed and said that Harry may have found himself a Muggleborn witch who was even brighter than his mother, and that he'd successfully apparated across London using an image he saw on the Muggle television a month earlier, not to mention being a working metamorphmagus and achieving an animagus transformation into a magical creature with two forms at six.

Then Sirius said that he'd be hiring ex-werewolves and Muggleborns to staff the businesses that he was expected to turn around and instead of an argument he got interested questions and helpful suggestions. Arcturus was fascinated and impressed by the fact that a six year old had come up with the answer for the age old werewolf problem and that they retained most of the advantages once they were cured. His shrewd questions about how much magical training Magical werewolves generally had led to a suggestion that they could be more effective if they were given the training to make up for what they'd been denied, and that the Muggleborns would probably be suitable to provide that training.

One of the challenges his grandfather gave him really caught Sirius' attention, because spending so much time with the Potters while he was at Hogwarts, he'd heard many stories about the world's two most infamous magical pirate ships, the Potters' Garuda in the East Indies Archipelago, and the Blacks' Raven in the Caribbean. Both ships were built in the Seventeenth Century, but they had spent much of the time since then in stasis. He'd actually seen the Garuda, the Potters' hundred foot Lamba, because she had been based in Bran Holm ever since the island of Krakatoa exploded in 1883, but she hadn't been used much since Henry Potter's explorer days in the early part of the Twentieth Century. Not much had been heard of the Raven, the Blacks' hundred and thirty odd foot black sailed three masted Bermuda Sloop, since the House of Black lost Castell Du to the goblins in the last Goblin Rebellion, and popular belief was that she had been lost with the castle. Apparently she had been stored in a cave on Isla Negra in the Caribbean under stasis for much of the time since then, as there had been less and less use over time for such a distinctive black sailing ship of her size in piracy or smuggling operations. Making the Raven into a profitable enterprise would definitely be a challenge, but she was more of a gift than a challenge from his grandfather, after all how could a hundred and thirty odd foot magical ship that was faster than most contemporary ships, was magically expanded inside to several times the size of the ship itself, that could fly, travel underwater and be made invisible and was magically armed and armoured _not_ be a gift?

* * *

Sirius found that he was quite enjoying talking to his Grandfather once he realised that he and Andi obviously weren't the only throwbacks to what the Blacks used to be, but he was still determined to win this so he played his trump card, that the moment he became Lord Black he'd be casting Bellatrix and Narcissa out of the House of Black and annulling their marriages so he could reclaim all of the Black money from the Houses of Lestrange and Malfoy to put a stop to it being used to fund Riddle's Death Eaters. That of course led to questions about why he was calling Voldemort Riddle and his grandfather was enraged that any children of the House of Black would shame their House by becoming branded slaves of a half-blood bastard who'd come from one of the most degraded bloodlines in Magical Britain and then using the Black fortune to fill his coffers.

When Arcturus had calmed down enough to stop breaking things he took a breath and told Sirius.

"You will not be casting Bellatrix and Narcissa out of the House of Black and annulling their marriages when you become Lord Black Sirius!"

Sirius drew himself up, thinking that he'd won this as he growled. " _And what makes you think I won't_?"

"The fact that I am doing it right now!"

With that, Arcturus drew himself up and formally expelled Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy from the House of Black, annulling their marriages to Rodolphos Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy and calling for any and all dowry monies and holdings and Black belongings in their possession, and any and all monies and holdings accruing from them to be returned to the House of Black, citing that they had brought shame on the House of Black through their and their husbands actions by allowing themselves to be branded by and abasing themselves to a half-blood bastard of common birth.

He also called on the Wizards Council to formally eradicate the House of Lestrange in Magical Britain, demanding that everything remaining to the House of Lestrange be forfeited to the Houses of Black and Longbottom as their Houses had been most wronged by the actions of the last Lestranges.

When these acts were performed, first Bellatrix, and then Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange collapsed in their cells in Azkaban, because they had suddenly lost the Black and Lestrange family magics, and the magical knowledge that went with them. All they retained was what they had of their mothers' family magic and that was not enough to help them survive in Azkaban (Muggleborn and Half-Blood witches and wizards generally found that their personal magic alone was sufficient, but the magical ability of the traditional 'Pureblood' families which refused to marry outside of the small group of interrelated 'Pure' families had been steadily declining over time, so many of the children of those houses needed their family magic to bolster their weaker personal magic). Bellatrix became discombobulated when the shock of losing the family magics broke the tenuous hold she had on her last threads of sanity. Other prisoners reported that she actually rushed to embrace the dementor that came to her cell, crying out "My Lord!", so she apparently believed that it was Lord Voldemort, but whatever the reason she received her last kiss from that dementor. Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange had also succumbed to the depreciations of the dementors within six months of Bellatrix's death.

Narcissa Malfoy felt the effects of the loss of the Black and Malfoy family magics just as keenly as her sister, but survived it because she had always had a rather stronger grasp on reality. She had a harder time surviving her husband's anger when he discovered how much of what he regarded as the Malfoy fortune (including most of their house elves) had been lost when Lord Black reclaimed what rightfully belonged to the House of Black. To save face, Lucius Malfoy was forced to reinstate his marriage to Narcissa and formally adopt his own son in order to reinstate him as his Heir, using blood adoption rituals to reconnect him with the Malfoy family magic. At least they hadn't wasted any time on the boy's magical training, because like many children of traditional Pureblood families, the seven year old Draco's magic had not begun to present itself yet.

Lucius did not bother reconnecting his wife to the Malfoy family magic as he blamed her for what had happened. Narcissa was too intelligent to point out that the fact that _he_ was a marked Death Eater was the reason that she had been cast out of the House of Black and their marriage had been annulled, but her treatment by her husband for what were largely the results of _his_ choices led her to spending quite a bit of the free time she now had reviewing what options were available to her. She was actually relieved that Lucius no longer wanted to have anything to do with her, but then his interest in her as anything but arm dressing had waned as soon as the House of Malfoy had an Heir. While she _was_ upset about being separated from her son, the constant stream of gifts he got from his father had already made Draco a 'Daddy's boy', but Narcissa paused and wondered what would happen if Lucius ever stopped trying to buy his affection.

 **A/N: Yeah, I know the potty training dig was** **a** **low** **blow** **but if the shoe fits… you've probably got a couple of ugly step-sisters. ;^)**


	5. Blood Will Tell

**One of the reviews showed me that I need to explain a little more about how things work in this world, or more specifically, how things work with the m _agic_ of this world better. The family magic of a House allows the Head of House to cast out any members of their House and disconnect them from the family magic. The Head of House can also annul the marriages of members of their House and reclaim anything that rightfully belongs to their House.**

 **The eradication of the magic of the House of Lestrange (which was the most important part of eradicating the House) and reallocation of what they owned is something else. This is part of the magic of the Wizards Council, the original Law of Magical Britain, as is the ability to magically remove a Head of House and replace them with their Heir when they're incapable of carrying out their duties as Head of House. Only the Heads of the remaining Guiding Families can be part of the Wizards Council, and any judgements of the Wizards Council require a majority vote of the Wizards Council for them to be enacted. Only if the majority of the Wizards Council agree on what is called for will the Magic of the Law of Magical Britain carry it out. Hope this explanation made as much sense to you as it did in my head.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I see things that didn't come out the way I wanted.**

Dora was met with one of what they'd come to think of as Hermione's hug-tackles from Harry when she came back from a discussion with her mother that she _really_ wished that she could forget about. She hadn't been planning on doing those things and now she wasn't sure that she was _ever_ going to, that was so embarrassing! As Harry ran off, she turned back to Bill and the fond smile she'd sent after Harry turned to a frown, because Bill had a very thoughtful, calculating look on his face that was tinged with respect as he looked after Harry. Her protective instincts kicked in and she snapped. "What happened here?"

Bill snorted. "Harry was doing what you're doing now, protecting you. He just warned me that if I ever did anything to hurt you, he'd destroy me."

"Don't..."

He cut her off with a raised hand. "Stop it! I am _not_ laughing at Harry! He loves you more than anyone but Hermione and I have no doubt that if I were to ever do anything so stupid as to hurt you, he _w_ _ould_ ensure that I was destroyed. He was very careful to explain that while he was quite aware that he has no chance of beating me in a fight yet, the Houses of the Potter family _do_ have the power to destroy me and anyone else who tried to hurt you, and he would use everything he has to do so in that event. Your cousin is a very impressive young man Dora, and I truly admire the way he's so protective of the people he loves. I understand where he's coming from, because that's what's been driving me since I was his age, keeping Charlie, the twins and our Dad safe from our mother, Dumbledore and everyone else….."

He looked at her thoughtfully for a while and then pulled her down onto the seat beside him, she sensed that whatever he was about to tell her was important. "No-one but Charlie knows this Dora, but my true talent is that I _see_ magic and its intent. That was how I saw what Mum's intentions were when she first put Dad under those potions to cover up the fact that Dad wasn't Percy's father. It's also how I _know_ that Charlie and the twins are my true brothers… Weasleys, but Percy, Ron and Ginny _aren't_. It works for magic like wards and things but it works even better for witches and wizards' magic. What I saw in Harry is that he will be incredibly powerful when he grows up…. Merlin he's amazingly powerful _now_ , but more importantly that you, Hermione and your families mean everything to him, and he will do everything in his power to protect you. He may only be six but he is determined to keep you safe, and he will use everything he has to do so. That will is shining out of Harry's magic and I assure you that I have nothing but respect and admiration for him for that Dora."

That made Dora very emotional, and ashamed of what she'd been thinking of Bill, so she just came in for a cuddle, hoping that the cuddle would tell him what she meant.

* * *

One thing that Bill _wasn't_ happy about was the fact that they had to pretend that he was getting Dora alone to do what he wanted with her any time they took off to Potter Manor for training and meetings involving him. Dora still had her 'detentions' to cover getting away for _her_ training sessions, but as a Prefect they couldn't use the same excuse for him as it would have lost him his prefect's status, so they had to use slipping away to have sex with the potioned witch as a cover for him. (The fact that Charlie and Hestia Jones, Emmeline Vance's ward, had to pretend to be slipping off to snog for the same reason (Charlie could get detentions but Hestia was a prefect too) was almost as embarrassing, more so for Hestia because she was being called a cradle snatcher by her girlfriends, who were jealous that she'd realised that the other Weasley was almost as fanciable as Bill and got in before they could, but at least Hestia wasn't being called a slag behind her back like Dora was.)

The problem was that Bill _needed_ those training sessions to give him the occlumency skills he needed to protect his mind against Dumbledore, and to improve his combat skills. They also had quite a few planning sessions about how they were going to keep Dora safely away from Molly Weasley and Dumbledore at the end of the school year and Bill and Dora had to be there to have their say on what they would and wouldn't agree to. Dumbledore's current plan was to have William's 'girlfriend' spend a week or two at the Weasleys' early in the break, and then unexpectedly 'disappear' on her way home after that, making sure that she was seen in Diagon Alley after she left the Weasleys' to allay any suspicions.

None of them were about to let Dora get anywhere near the Potions Queen, even with what Pandora and the goblins had come up with to counter her potions, so their counter plan was to have Andi require that Dora's new boyfriend spend the first couple of weeks of the holiday with her family so they could get to know him _before_ she went to stay with his family, and have the Hogwarts Board fire Dumbledore while they were officially at the Tonks' (but would actually be safe inside the protection of the Potter Estate's wards).

They'd already decided that Dumbledore remaining at Hogwarts represented too great a risk to the students, their kids in particular, so he had to go. The improvement in the students' grades accruing from the changes they'd forced Dumbledore to make at Christmas should be ample evidence that Dumbledore's incompetence was dragging Hogwarts down. If that _wasn't_ enough to convince the more recalcitrant members of the Board, they had official reports from the ICW which documented the decline of Hogwarts from at least an acceptable if not respected school which was turning out a reasonable number of admirable graduates in the Forties when Dumbledore first became Headmaster, to the joke it currently was, a school that no-one from overseas had sent their children to for over a decade because its reputation was so bad (including the figures of how many foreign students went to Beauxbatons and Durmstrang each year).

Quite aside from the academic evidence to show that the only logical choice was to terminate Dumbledore, just before the end of the school year they were going to pounce and recover the Potter and other houses' priceless heirlooms that Dumbledore still had locked away in his chambers. Their elves had located James' invisibility cloak, the Potter pensieve and what appeared to be James and Lily Potter's magical portraits hidden away in his chambers (the only reason they could think of for Dumbledore to steal James and Lily's portraits was that he was afraid that they had left information about his betrayal of them for Harry, as part of the images of themselves that were bonded to the portraits. Unfortunately Dumbledore had warded the portraits' hiding place too strongly to remove or switch them without his knowing, so they had to leave them there until they were ready to move on him), along with heirlooms of other important houses that had 'disappeared' over the last fifty years or so. Once Amelia had the DMLE raid Dumbledore's chambers and recover all the heirlooms, the criminal proceedings for stealing from Noble and Ancient and Noble and Most Ancient Houses, _especially_ the magical portraits of the last Lord and Lady Potter, should be quite enough to see him removed as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot _and_ the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards (he could hardly hold that position when he was dismissed from every other position in disgrace).

Everything was saying that their plans were foolproof, but it was Dora's safety, her _life_ , at stake here, so they were all nervous.

* * *

While all this was going on, Harry and Hermione were doing very well at Primary school, in fact they had been moved up a year just after the new Headmistress took over Crawley, because she'd had them do the end of year tests after she looked over the results of the students who were at the centre of the storm that had swept through the school and she saw how far ahead of the other students they were. She had further discussions with Roger and Jean about the possibility of their children testing out to skip another year at the end of the school year, so they'd start the new year with a class that was closer to their level. Roger and Jean discussed it with the kids and then agreed when it was obvious that they wanted this. The occlumency training had doubtless helped them learn more quickly, but the fact was they were both brilliant and they could get through far faster than ordinary students anyway.

As soon as all the OWL and NEWT exams were finished so they wouldn't put off the ones sitting them, they pounced. Amelia brought a team of DMLE and Department of Mysteries witches and wizards and Gringotts' Curse Breakers and Estate Managers in through Minerva's office and headed for the Headmaster's office, with Minerva letting them in. They made a show of the Unspeakables casting a few spells to discover Heirlooms, then they started pulling out the ones that they knew about, with the Curse Breakers stripping away the wards over the important items. The Curse Breakers' formal report that the wards over the Potters' portraits had been set to destroy them if someone tried to grab them without first disabling the wards added another significant charge to the ever growing list for Dumbledore. After they had retrieved the Potter heirlooms and the other ones that the elves had located, they went through every inch of Dumbledore's chambers, and they found far more.

After the surprise raid and the extent of what Dumbledore had stolen was known, there were very few arguments raised against his termination as Headmaster, or indeed any role at Hogwarts, it was only his staunchest supporters and those under orders to prevent his dismissal who even tried. There were even fewer arguments against Minerva being elevated to Headmistress, but unfortunately as expected they couldn't get past the ingrained bigotry to have Filius made the new Deputy Head, so Pomona became the new Deputy Headmistress. At least Arcturus claiming back everything belonging to the House of Black from the Houses of Malfoy and Lestrange had been enough to lose Lucius Malfoy his seat on the Board, and they had used their votes to have that seat allocated to Sirius as Heir Black, to look out for the interests of current and future students related to the House of Black. Aside from Filius, everything had gone much as they'd hoped there.

* * *

Dumbledore's trial also went much as expected, if not hoped, the Minister used her influence to force the charges against him to be reduced, but even with her calling in all the favours she could he was still sentenced to seven years in Azkaban's minimum security cells without parole (while they'd been forced to give him a minimum sentence, they insisted that that would be the sentence he actually _served_ ). With the evidence of crimes against the Noble and Ancient and Noble and _Most_ Ancient Houses which held the power in the Wizengamot, Bagnold couldn't stop the Wizengamot summarily dismissing him as Chief Warlock, and as the ICW representative roles actually represented the Wizengamot rather than the Ministry, she could not prevent them dismissing _both_ of Magical Britain's current ICW representatives either, which automatically lost Dumbledore the Supreme Mugwump role as he no longer held a position in the ICW.

Baroness Griselda Marchbanks was voted in as the Chief Witch, and immediately proposed that the position be made a _dual_ role to prevent the type of abuses of power that they had seen committed by previous Chief Warlocks, citing the illegal sealing of Lord and Lady Potter's wills and Heir Black being illegally incarcerated in Azkaban for over five years without a trial as two examples of this type of abuse of power. When asked how this would be handled she responded with. "I am envisioning _both_ holders of the role presiding over all major sessions and making rulings on them together, but alternating presiding over the less important sessions. However, if a minor session were to suddenly _become_ important, then the other Chief Witch or Wizard would have to be called in so that they address the issues together."

The majority of the Wizengamot could see the sense in that and voted in favour of changing the Chief Warlock's position to a dual role. Dumbledore's trial had brought every Wizengamot member in to see the show and either help save or destroy the old wizard, so they called for nominations for the second Chief Witch or Warlock then and there and Baron Tiberius Ogden was voted in. They also had Earl Cyrus Greengrass and Earl Francis Longbottom voted in as Magical Britain's two new ICW representatives (Cyrus was seen as progressive and Frank was seen as traditional, but both of them were well enough educated in Magical cultures of the world not to embarrass Magical Britain or cause the type of incidents that both Albus Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy had while in those roles.)

* * *

Minister Bagnold was not at all happy with what was happening to the balance of power in Magical Britain. The 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch your's' arrangement that she'd had with Dumbledore since she became Minister had worked out quite well for both of them, and the 'contributions' she'd gotten for letting Malfoy and the other rich and prominent Death Eaters off scott free and ensuring that international trade agreements favoured their families' businesses had made her quite a wealthy witch. Now though, she had _two_ totally unyielding elders of the Wizengamot in place of Dumbledore, and she knew better than to try and propose anything of a similar nature to either of them.

Being unable to prevent _Lord_ Malfoy (hmmm, that at least should be amusing, because she couldn't see Baroness Marchbanks, Baron Ogden or any of the rest of the titled heads of the Noble Houses for that matter allowing Malfoy to continue calling himself _Lord_ now that the Black title which had been bequeathed to his wife as part of her dowry had been claimed back by Lord Black when he cast her out of the House of Black... she'd actually heard a rumour that Lord Black had then turned around and bequeathed that title to her sister who married a Mudblood, which implied that Heir Black wasn't the only Black who hadn't been disowned as everyone said) being dismissed as their ICW representative would cost her, because even after Lord Black had taken back so much of the Malfoy fortune the others had been paying their contributions to keep the favourable trade agreements, there was no chance of Longbottom ever being agreeable to those arrangements and she didn't hold out much hope with Greengrass either, so she'd be losing a lot of contributions there.

Perhaps she could recover some of that from the Hogwarts funding though? She'd had to keep the funding up for Hogwarts to appease Dumbledore, but now that he had lost his position there, no-one would know if that funding was diverted would they?…. yes, that should help her recover some of her losses.

* * *

One thing Bagnold and Dumbledore's supporters didn't know about was that the Guiding Families had invited Dumbledore's younger brother Aberforth (who few people knew was actually the proprietor of the Hogs Head pub in Hogsmeade) to a meeting to discuss the future of the Minor House of Dumbledore. Aberforth had hated Albus ever since their younger sister was killed in a fight that broke out between Albus and his lover Gellert Grindelwald over ninety years ago, because the fact that Albus never had the broken nose Aberforth gave him for that healed was as good as an admission of guilt in his book. On top of that, when Albus was caught altering goats for questionable purposes, he'd used his mind magic skills to convince everyone that Aberforth was the guilty one and had him sent to Azkaban for five years to prevent him talking to anyone about it because the Dumbledores were naturally resistant to mind magic... no, he had no love for his _dear_ brother.

That was why, when the representatives of the Guiding Families Alliance made him a proposition, Aberforth jumped at the chance. The Wizards Council formally ruled Albus Percival Dumbledore (he'd apparently added Wulfric and Brian himself as people with more names always seemed more important) unfit to serve as Head of the Minor House of Dumblebore and elevated Aberforth Dumbledore, as the only other member of the family, to Head of House. Then they talked Aberforth though the process to expel Albus Percival Dumbledore from the House of Dumbledore for bringing shame on the name of Dumbledore. Aberforth _did_ lose most of the money Albus had swindled and stolen because the Guiding Families had claimed it to return it to those it was stolen from, but the satisfaction of making Albus pay was enough.

When this happened, Aberforth's brother collapsed in the minimum security cells of Azkaban and was left feeling feeble and confused, because the rules of family magic are that major magical achievements of members of the house become family magic, for the benefit of the family. As the Head of the Dumbledore family (the Minor House of Dumbledore since he was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class in Forty Five for vanquishing his lover), Albus had always enjoyed the full benefit of all his and his Dumbledore ancestors' magical achievements through the family magic, but in two separate hits over the space of five minutes, he'd lost _all_ of his family magic and the associated knowledge, and he was suddenly feeling every bit of his hundred and ten or so years.

He couldn't understand what had happened to him (which he could only blame himself for, because when he became the Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts, and then _again_ when he became Headmaster, he'd sworn an oath to ensure that he understood and upheld the official Hogwarts Charter, which incorporated the first official documentation of the Magical Laws of Britain as the Druids Council officially became the Wizards Council when Hogwarts was founded and as Magical Britain's seat of power because Hogwarts was its only school and court, Hogwarts' Head and Deputy Head were in effect the first nominated government officials, so he had sworn that oath to uphold the laws incorporated into the Hogwarts Charter twice without bothering to read what he swore to uphold, and what had just been enacted was part of those laws), but he did know that he had lost something significant.

* * *

Once Dumbledore had been dealt with, they turned their sights on their next target, the adulterous potions queen. Part of the problem there was that they really needed Arthur in a state where he could present his case and look after his family before they moved on her, and then there was the question of what to do with the other wizards' children. Amelia was adamant that Arthur would insist on looking after all of Molly's children as his own, and the other adults deferred to her as the authority on Arthur, after all, she _had_ been Arthur's girlfriend up until that harlot used potions to steal him off of her.

They were careful to ensure that she didn't hear them talking about how her pain and suffering over losing him had actually been to Magical Britain's benefit, because that heartbroken young witch had turned hard as nails in her final year at Hogwarts, going on to Auror training and wiping the floor with every other witch and wizard there, including most of the trainers. Her impressive performance led to her catching the eye of the legendary Auror Alastor Moody and him taking her on as his first apprentice, which took her skills to even greater heights…. but even though she was indisputably the best Auror and Investigator in living memory after him, by the end of the war she still hadn't received any real recognition from the old fools in the Ministry who held to the belief that witches were only good for one thing, irrespective of what all her operations reports and the legendary Alastor Moody were saying about her.

That was when Barty Crouch Junior was discovered to be a marked Death Eater who was almost as bad as Bellatrix Lestrange, and even though Barty Senior had sent his only (as far as most of Magical Britain knew) son to Azkaban, his son's actions, in conjunction with his own questionable actions led to him losing his position as the Director of the DMLE. All of the political factions were putting forward their own nominations for the new head of the DMLE, looking to get the DMLE in their pockets so they could do as they wished, but they'd all forgotten that there was a group who had a historical imperative to assure the prosperity and security of Magical Britain.

The Guiding Families had a candidate of their own who was more qualified and had more integrity than any of the other nominations, and perhaps even more important, who had recently acquired the responsibility of being both Guardian and Regent for her nearly two year old niece, the next Countess Bones, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones, so they wanted to get her out of the field before some incompetent partner got her killed.

The Ministry and the rest of the Wizengamot were reminded why the Guiding Families had been the leaders of Magical Britain for two thousand years when they fenced with and then finally just steamrollered over any and all resistance to Madam Amelia Bones becoming Director of the DMLE. Bagnold and Dumbledore's factions were the last hold outs against Amelia being confirmed as the DMLE's head, but they didn't have the power to block the Guiding Families after the rest of the Wizengamot had conceded that she was the best for the job. Amelia had taken over and had done a superior job of it as they'd all expected, but now she was face to face with what forced her to go down that path and the others were keeping their heads down because they remembered the old rule about not looking a wild animal in the eye in case it attacks.

Amelia had enlisted Alastor's help to get Emmeline Vance transferred into the Investigation group towards the end of the war after Emma had become the guardian for the daughter of her Auror partner when he and his wife were killed by Death Eaters, much like Amelia had become her niece's guardian, and Emma and Hestia moved in with Amelia and Susan so that the two witches could help each other raise the girls, though Hestia was almost ten years older than Susan. Amelia and Emma had been friends before, but looking after the girls drew them even closer and this closeness was what helped Emma settle Amelia down over the business of Arthur and the Harlot.

* * *

While they agreed that Amelia was probably right about Arthur, they needed to get him back on his feet before he would be in any position to make that decision, and to do that they needed to find a way to get him away from the Burrow (the Weasleys' home) for a week or more. Sirius was trying to keep a straight face when he said that they obviously needed a Muggle Artefacts Emergency, but gave in and burst out laughing, until he realised that he was the only one laughing, because everyone else was looking thoughtful. Amelia shook her head ruefully. "As crazy as that sounds, and I'm sure that was _meant_ to be a joke, it's actually the only thing which would have any chance of working. We need 'find' a large collection of enchanted muggle artefacts at a muggle location that we can't remove the artefacts from so that we will have to send our Muggle Artefacts expert to the artefacts to evaluate them and determine what to do with them."

They got to work on finalising the details while Bill was spending a week at his 'pretend' girlfriend's family's home. This hadn't been anywhere near as hard as they'd expected to pull off, because Molly was so deluded that she actually believed that this business with Albus was all a big mistake and everyone would be apologising to him when they asked him to come back. So she happily sent 'William' off to the Tonks' with a parcel of potions in his trunk (the idea of a smaller bag for a short stay never seemed to occur to the wizarding world) to keep the girl under control while they were preparing their 'Muggle Artefacts Emergency'.

While he was researching potential issues with his father's treatment with Dora and her mother, Bill snorted, because his current relationship would have been a dream come true for any rational mother in Magical Britain. His girlfriend was pretty, intelligent and magically powerful with rare magical talents. Her Noble House was a little unusual in that it was her mother who held the title (as it had been for the Malfoys when _they_ were a Noble House), but while they couldn't talk about it yet, her mother was also the magical guardian and Regent of the young _Duke_ Potter and the Houses of the Potter family, and on top of that she was a daughter of the House of Black who had been publicly and affectionately acknowledged as close family by both Earl Arcturus Black, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and Earl Sirius Black, _Heir_ to the House of Black, not to mention being acknowledged by the Heads of the majority of the other Noble and Most Ancient Houses, so the Noble House of Tonks was about as well connected as they could be, but to his mother, the bigoted Harlot of Hogwarts (he'd been shocked that it was the sweet, kindly Professor Sprout who had told him what his mother was often known as when she was at Hogwarts), his wonderful girlfriend was nothing but a Half-blood demon spawn that needed to be exterminated, because the _great_ Albus Dumbledore (actually Albus Jones now since he'd lost the right to use the Dumbledore name) said so!

He laughed out loud as he thought about Charlie's admission that he was finding that he really liked getting 'caught' snogging a girl as pretty and nice as Hestia. It wasn't that surprising really, because they hadn't had time for friends since they came to Hogwarts as they'd been mainly focussed on studying and finding a way to help Dad and the twins, so suddenly having to do all these things to make it look like they had girlfriends with girls like Dora and Hestia stirred up…. feelings… that they hadn't had before. He certainly wasn't complaining because Dora was amazing, and the smiles on Charlie and Hestia's faces when they were together said that they had no complaints either, but this wasn't the way he'd expected to get a girlfriend, and he was willing to bet that Charlie felt the same way.

* * *

Arthur was called away on the 'Muggle Artefacts Emergency' the day after Bill got back from 'the Tonks'. As expected, Molly flew into a panic when Arthur told her that the Director of the DMLE had advised him that he would be away for at least a week or two, going through everything in this site, but the potions in his system made him accept it when she told him that he was recovering from a new strain of magical flu, so he had to take the potions she was giving him without fail. Having those potions made their job easier actually, because between them and what was already in his system, they came up with what they needed to flush the potions out of his system and counter the residuals in his body a lot quicker.

They had him to the point of being aware of himself and what had happened to him in less than a week this way, and then they saw something that very few people had ever witnessed, Arthurus Septimus Weasley in a towering rage. Amelia managed to get him calmed down, but then they had to wait for him to stop crying about what he'd done, leaving her for that Prewett slut. Arthur was indescribably proud of his sons Bill and Charlie when he was told what they'd been doing to protect the family since his _wife_ had put him under the potions that he'd just been released from. With the potions out of his system and the memory charms, compulsions and the like that Dumbledore put on him removed, Arthur could remember who Percival's father was, Bartemius Crouch. Going by Bill and Charlie's memories of their siblings, they were willing to bet that Ginerva was Crouch's as well, there were too many similarities between her and Percy for them not to be the same blood.

Ronald was a problem at first as Arthur couldn't remember anything about who his father was, until he suddenly snorted as he was watching the boys' memories of him. "Oh there can't be anyone else that he could get _those_ traits from, his father _has_ to be Cornie Fudge!"

The others looked at the memories with new eyes and had to admit that he was correct, and they were embarrassed that they hadn't seen something that obvious before. That was going to cause a problem, because for some reason Minister Bagnold seemed to be protective of Fudge, but they couldn't argue blood evidence and when Ronald's blood confirmed that he was Cornelius Fudge's son, there was nothing she could do about it. Mind you, he would probably argue that he was just one of many who had sex with her and get away with a slap on the wrist and repaying what the House of Weasley had spent raising him (probably arguing it down to a pittance, seeing as the boy was only seven and the Weasleys were a big family), but Bill and Charlie had made it clear that they _really_ wanted Ronnie to be sent to live with his father. Percy and Ginny were pampered and irritating, but they would probably come out alright with a proper upbringing. Ron's behaviour on the other hand was disgusting, his personal hygiene and table manners were enough to make everyone around him sick, and his accidental magic whenever he had a temper tantrum (which was _all_ the time) meant that they were always cleaning up after him.

All Arthur could do was promise to see whether they could get Ronald made his father's ward, because with their mother going to Azkaban (there was no way she wouldn't with the number of charges that she'd have against her), he wouldn't have a blood parent in the house and Arthur had never really been involved in his upbringing. Amelia got a grateful smile from Arthur when she pointed out that Fudge and his wife had no children, so under those circumstances the most logical thing would be for Ronald to be with his father, she also mused that Barty Crouch had been a widower since his wife died soon after the war and he had a job that required him to go overseas regularly, so he wouldn't really be a good choice to raise two young children on his own.

Molly Weasley was arrested that day, and the children were all taken to St Mungo's and Gringotts to be examined and do formal inheritance tests (this was the most reliable and accepted way of determining parentage in the Magical world). Only one significant surprise came out of this testing, as they were all healthy and had the expected parentage, though the twins were both under potions to moderate their behaviour, which added yet another charge to what was being compiled against Molly. The surprise was the fact that Percy _wasn't_ Heir to the Minor House of Crouch because the Crouch Heir was still alive! Considering that Barty Crouch Junior was supposed to have died in Azkaban _before_ Mrs Crouch died, there were obviously some serious questions to be answered!

Amelia sent a team to secretly retrieve the remains of Barty Crouch Junior from Azkaban, because while the commonly known methods of identification in the magical world only applied to live witches and wizards, Gringott had told her that the goblins had the means to identify at least the family of a corpse as well, they'd developed this to deal with challenges to inheritance. When the goblins tested the body, they found that it _couldn't_ be Barty Crouch Junior because there wasn't any trace of the Crouch bloodline in it, and what's more it was an older _female_ , who just so happened to be of Mrs Crouch's bloodline. At that Augusta pointed out that Mrs Crouch had been a frail, sickly woman who had been stricken when she heard what had happened to her beloved son, and Amelia added that she and her husband had actually visited their son just before he supposedly died.

Half of them went white at the thought that a deranged monster like Crouch's son may have been released back into their world by his father, but calmer heads prevailed and pointed out that Barty Junior wasn't likely to curb his urges to rape, torture and kill if he was running around free and there hadn't been any significant evidence of that sort of thing happening, so a team went in to scan what was supposed to be Mrs Crouch's grave. When they unfortunately found it empty, they scanned the Crouch house and found that there were two human forms, plus a house elf in there. Considering that Barty Senior supposedly lived alone with his house elf, it appeared that there was a good chance that Barty Junior was alive, and in that house.

A call over the communications mirrors that the marauders had created had the trunk one of the team was carrying un-shrunk so that additional Aurors and Sirius' ex-werewolf and goblin security team could use the goblin floo in the trunk to come through with Amelia. When they were all ready, the goblins popped some of the security team straight into the house while the Aurors burst in. Barty Senior was shouting that they couldn't do this and he was going to have all of their jobs until one of the ex-werewolves located Barty Junior by his scent and pulled the invisibility cloak off of him. Crouch was smart enough to shut up then, but they had to stun his elf Winky because she was attacking the Aurors trying to arrest her master.

* * *

They didn't want Bagnold to have time to prepare for this so the Wizards Council transferred the Baron Weasley and Head of House titles for the House of Weasley back to Arthur and he accepted them, taking back the Weasley voting proxies and having the Prewett voting proxies transferred to him while Griselda called an emergency Wizengamot session to hold a number of criminal trials in the morning. The owls summoning Wizengamot members to attend were sent after most of them would have gone to bed, so the majority of them didn't know anything about the trials until an hour or two before they started, this meant that they'd completed Barty Junior's trial and sentenced him to be sent through the Veil of Death (they'd harvested everything in his head the night before and he'd done enough to merit the death sentence a dozen times over), and they were halfway through Barty Senior's trial before the doors of the court room burst open to admit a furious Minister Bagnold.

She demanded that this trial be stopped and Barty be released, but she was flabbergasted when over half of the Wizengamot burst out laughing at her. They'd already heard enough from Crouch's own lips that the only question would be whether life in Azkaban was sufficient, or he should be put through the Veil of Death too for what he had done. The Chief Warlock reminded Bagnold that she had no authority to interfere with a Wizengamot trial, especially when she obviously had no understanding of what the accused was being tried for, and told her to be quiet or she would be expelled from the court. Bagnold could see that he was just waiting for her to give him the excuse to expel her, so she shut up and went to sit in the box reserved for the Ministry's observers.

The fact that Crouch wasn't removed from the court once he was sentenced to life in Azkaban told her that something else was going on, and she had a good idea what that was when the next item was announced, the trial of Molly Muriel Weasley for Line Theft against the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley, for illegally potioning Baron Arthurus Septimus Weasley, Head of the House of Weasley and his sons, and for several counts of adultery and forcing Baron Weasley to raise three children sired by other wizards. Bagnold was going to leave, as siring a child on the Consort of a Noble and Most Ancient House, as bad as it was, was hardly a patch on what Barty had already been convicted of, but the 'other _wizards_ ' stopped her, because with how her luck had been going so far, there were probably be even more of her people caught up in this and someone had been doing a good job of keeping her out of the loop so it would be best to hear it herself.

Bagnold was shaking her head by the end of this trial, they had eradicated the Minor House of Crouch and announced everything belonging to Barty Crouch and the House of Crouch forfeit to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley, Molly had been expelled from both the Weasley and Prewett families, defaulting to her mother's maiden name of Selwyn, everything she owned was forfeited to the House of Weasley and she had been sentenced to forty years in Azkaban's Minimum Security cells. Her Aunt, Muriel Prewett was also expelled from the House of Prewett and forfeited half of what she owned to the House of Weasley for her part in the plot to use forbidden potions to trap the Weasley Heir into marriage, thereby interfering with the pending negotiations between the House of Weasley and the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones for the hand of Amelia Bones, a daughter of the House of Bones, thereby incurring her own Line Theft charges, in addition to her involvement in covering up Molly Weasley's adultery and further attempted Line Theft charges for fraudulently representing the children of Bartemius Crouch and Cornelius Fudge as being in the line of succession for the House of Weasley.

She wasn't too surprised by how much trouble Fudge had gotten himself into, as he always was an idiot, she only kept him around because he was useful to have as a blunt object. Fudge was found guilty of being involved in adultery and attempted line theft charges in relation to his son, born Ronald Bilius Weasley. He was ordered to pay a thousand galleons per month for the period from his son's birth to the current date (a total of eighty eight thousand galleons) to recompense the House of Weasley for the upbringing of his son, and he was further ordered to formally and _publicly_ claim his son as his own, taking him into his family and assuming control of the upbringing of his son from this day. The boy was allowed to retain the name Ronald only, as they were forbidden to use anything that may connect him to the Weasley family in any way, which his middle name did.

* * *

Just as she thought that everything was over and done with, Minister Bagnold was reminded that it ain't over until it's over, because Magical Britain's ICW representatives proposed and seconded that Baron Arthurus Weasley be appointed to replace Bartemius Crouch as the Head of the Department of International Cooperation, and it was voted in before she had a chance to stop it. When she raged at them and said that they didn't have the authority to dictate Ministry appointments, the Chief Witch actually _laughed_ at her!

"It would appear that your knowledge of the rules and practices of Magical Britain is as lacking as our predecessor's Madam Minister. For your information, the Ministry of Magic is merely the administrative body of the Wizengamot, and as such, the Wizengamot had the authority, and in fact the duty, to direct the Ministry as required. From the evidence we have seen here today and in previous trials, it is quite apparent that the Ministry's processes for selecting appointees to significant roles in the Ministry are flawed at best, and perhaps even questionable. Therefore, the Wizengamot cannot sit by and allow any further appointments to be made which may cause damage to Magical Britain's reputation. You are on notice Minister, our appointment of Baron Weasley stands, and we will be reviewing the appropriateness of other significant Ministry appointments as well. Perhaps the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes would bear further scrutiny, as after seeing Mister Fudge's performance today I have a better understanding of its role in the false imprisonment of the Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

The gaze boring into her made Bagnold shiver, because she quite understood the message she'd just been given…. 'Set your house in order or we will!' but this could ruin her. She'd been paid a lot of galleons for the various factions to get their people into key roles in the Ministry….

Oh no, how could she have she forgotten that? This was _exactly_ what they'd done back at the end of Eighty One when everyone was fighting to get control of the DMLE, they'd used the power of the Wizengamot to force the candidate they decided was the best choice to get the job…. and aside from the fact that Bones was a pain in the arse most of the time, she had to concede she _was_ the best qualified for that job, but that didn't help _her_ at all because if they started going through the Ministry doing this her contributors would start asking what they were paying her for, and that was a question she most definitely didn't want to try to answer!

* * *

The discussions among the Weasley family that night were difficult, because the first questions were, of course. "Where are Mummy and Ronnie?"

Luckily, while Crouch was an unscrupulous bastard, he was quite intelligent, so his children were almost on par with Arthur's clever sons and they didn't have too much trouble getting them to understand that Mummy had done something very wrong and she'd been taken away for a long time. They had _all_ been disgusted by the way Ronnie smelt and acted most of the time, so it wasn't too hard for them to accept that he belonged to another family and he'd gone to live with his Daddy (they seemed quite happy about that actually), but Arthur could see that Percy at least was already wondering who else didn't belong in the Weasley family, and that sooner rather than later he'd work it out, so he decided to come out and tell them. "Percy and Ginny, you have a different father too, but he's gone away like your Mummy and we _want_ you in our family if that's what you want. _Do_ you want to be Weasleys?"

It took a while for the tears to die down enough for Percy and Ginny to say that they most definitely _did_ want to be Weasleys, and once Arthur and the other boys made it quite clear that that was what they wanted too everyone was happier. Arthur did quietly tell Percy that some things about his behaviour were going to have to change, but he made it clear that he knew it was only because he'd been given bad examples and that he was a good boy underneath.

There were a few more tears when they heard that the Burrow was being sold and they were going to be living somewhere else, but Ginny's tears dried up when she was presented with the challenge of getting to the bottom of the mystery of why Charlie had gone so red when Daddy said that they would be living in Bones Manor from now on. Big brothers could be so much fun sometimes!


	6. Demi-Britain

**Some may find parts of this one a little dry, as much of it's about the houses and politics of Magical Britain in this world, but the requested bone of redemption is thrown to Narcissa and Lucy gets a slap down, so hopefully folks will like that ;^) The point of describing the system is (in part) to show what's wrong with it.  
**

 **This one brings them up to Harry and Hermione starting at Hogwarts.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I see things that didn't come out the way I wanted.**

As soon as Harry woke up James and Lily's portraits, they got their story from them. James had brought the portrait artist to the cottage in Godric's Hollow for the sittings in secret, so no-one else knew about them before they were killed. That was probably why Dumbledore freaked out and hid them when he found them while he was ransacking the cottage, because if James or Lily had gotten out from under the compulsions enough, they would have quite likely set things up to get a message out if they were destroyed, but he didn't know how much they knew about what he was doing. What it came down to though was that Lily more than James had been getting suspicious about why the Hell they would have agreed to leave the safest location in the British Isles to 'hide' in Godric's Hollow, and even James was suspicious enough to agree to record who the secret keeper was in their wills to protect Sirius just before they were killed, but Lily's suspicions were the only things the portraits knew about.

* * *

People's reactions to the events of the six months odd since Harry Potter returned to the Magical world varied considerably, many (especially those fortunate few who actually knew that Harry was alive and well) hailed it as the dawn of a new golden age for Magical Britain, as the majority of students at Hogwarts were showing major improvement, an actual cure for Lycanthropy had been found, and some of the major houses were creating and funding new industries which were like a pepper up potion for the magical community, never before had so much been achieved in such a short time…. But those who had been quite happy with the way things were because they had been in control for the most part were rather less pleased. These witches and wizards, as part of what was called the truly 'light' and the truly 'dark' houses, had in the past tended to occupy the two ends of the political spectrum in Magical Britain, but they all had one thing in common, they held to the 'traditional' Pureblood supremacy beliefs.

With Albus Dumbledore being cast out of all four of the extremely influential positions he held (the Headmaster of Hogwarts, where he could influence the leaders of the future, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot where he could influence the laws and direction of Magical Britain, one of Magical Britain's representatives to the International Confederation of Wizards where he could influence Magical Britain's trade agreements and the like with the rest of the Magical world, and the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW where he could influence the Magical world's stance on important matters), both of the 'traditional' Pureblood factions had lost their most powerful supporter, who ironically enough was in fact a Half-Blood.

* * *

Minister Bagnold actually missed the show she'd been looking forward to with Lucius Malfoy because she wasn't in the Wizengamot session where it came to a head, but Lord Arcturus Black made sure that _he_ was. Just as everyone had expected, Lucius Malfoy's ego wouldn't let him accept the fact that he was no longer the powerful _Lord_ Malfoy who most were afraid of, so he kept interrupting Ted as he was presenting a submission for the Alliance and when Ted requested that Mister Malfoy be ordered to allow him to finish his presentation without interruption he bit. "That's _Lord_ Malfoy to you Mudblood, and no-one orders _me_ to be quiet!"

That was what Arcturus had been waiting for and he shot to his feet. "I demand that this impostor present proof of this title he claims, that he be sanctioned for using unacceptable forms of address in the Wizengamot and that he be reminded that the Lady Chief Witch or Lord Chief Warlock can indeed order him to do whatever they so wish within the rules of the Wizengamot…. Have his qualifications to even hold a seat in the Wizengamot been reviewed since his house was degraded? Surely there are superior houses which have been awaiting the opportunity for their house to gain a seat on the Wizengamot?"

One look at Griselda told Tiberius that she couldn't answer this without exploding so he spoke up.

"Indeed Mister Malfoy, by what title does the Head of the _Minor_ House of Malfoy claim the right to be addressed as a Lord? As to Lord Black's other points, to remind you of My Lady Chief Witch and my authority as the presiding heads of the Wizengamot, I _order_ that you be silenced once you have answered our questions, and to pay a fine of two thousand galleons to _Lord_ Tonks for the breaching the rules of etiquette of the Wizengamot in heckling him in such an uncouth manner and using an unacceptable derogatory form of address directed at him. I also levy a further thousand galleon fine to be paid to the Wizengamot itself for these offences…. and there may well be further fines if you cannot prove your right to use the title 'Lord'… Scribe, have you determined the answer to Lord Black's question as to the Minor House of Malfoy's right to hold a Wizengamot seat?"

The Court Scribe replied first, as he'd jumped to do that very thing in anticipation of this question, and there was no surprise in the answer as he knew that Lord Black was no fool. "Yes I have My Lord Chief Warlock…. Lord Black appears to be correct in that the Minor House of Malfoy's recent degradation appears to have dropped it below the recently elevated Noble House of Tonks and at least four other Minor Houses currently awaiting a seat on the Wizengamot, therefore it appears that the House of Malfoy's Wizengamot seat should have been revoked."

"Thank you Scribe. Mister Malfoy, you have been challenged to present proof of your right to style yourself as _Lord_ Malfoy, please do so immediately!"

It was obvious that Malfoy wanted to curse the Chief Warlock, Ted and Andi Tonks, Lord Black _and_ the Court Scribe to death, but he was bright enough to realise that he'd only get one curse off if that before he was put down so he bit out. "I must apologise Chief Warlock, in my anger at the slight from the appellant I forgot that my house's rightful title was stripped from us and that I was no longer styled as Lord Malfoy..."

A good number of those in the chamber were counting the seconds to the explosion, and Lord Black didn't keep them waiting long. "I demand satisfaction from this worm, this creature of Bad Faith My Lord Chief Wizard! For a start there _was_ no slight from _Lord_ Tonks, he was addressing _Mister_ Malfoy quite properly, for another thing Lord Tonks is _not_ an appellant, he is presenting a submission for the alliance of Houses of which the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is a part! But what I demand satisfaction for is the false claim that the title that was rightfully reclaimed as part of the dowry of a daughter of the House of Black when her marriage was annulled because of her husband's actions bringing shame on the House of Black was _ever_ the rightful title of the House of Malfoy!"

Arcturus certainly appeared to be enraged, but Sirius was too calm when he stood for this to be anything but an act, even though most in the chamber wouldn't know that. "Grandfather, you must calm yourself! Anyway, if anyone is going to challenge the Head of the House of Bad Faith it should be me! _I_ was the one who lost so many of my friends and their families to him and his fellow branded slaves of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the common Half-Blood bastard of an almost squib and a muggle who styled himself as Lord Voldemort…. Is that why Malfoy chooses to style himself as a Lord when he has no right to do so, is he still attempting to follow his dead master?…. Anyway, between the friends I lost to them and the five years of torment I suffered when I was sent to Azkaban without a trial after another one of his accomplices framed me for betraying my best friends to their deaths and killing him and a dozen non-magical people, I believe I have more right to challenge him than you Grandfather, and besides, no offence Grandad but you are hardly young any more and as you have said I'm not ready to take over a house of the scale of the House of Black yet so for the sake of our house please let me challenge him in your place..."

This was a masterful move that could hardly have been any more effective if it was scripted, Sirius had no trouble with openly agreeing that a few months wasn't enough time to learn to take over the affairs of one of the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Europe and it was not insulting his Grandfather and Head of House to remind him that he was too old and too needed to go challenging an inconsequential bug who _did_ have plenty of recent experience in attacking others as a Death Eater, and it gave him a very public setting in which to verbally attack both Malfoy and his master with impunity, so his Grandfather pretended to scowl at him before he nodded. "Very well Grandson", then turned back to Malfoy. "What is it to be Bad Faith? Will you face my Grandson Earl Sirius Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and a descendent of the Morrighan, or will you offer proper apologies to the House of Black, myself, my Great Niece and her husband for the insults given and false claims to a _Black_ title…. And ten, no _fifteen_ thousand galleons compensation to the House of Black for the stain on our reputation…. Well?"

Malfoy's rage on the other hand was quite real, but for all he wanted to kill the lot of them for humiliating him like this, not to mention costing him nearly twenty thousand galleons, he'd seen Black in action in the war, and he knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against him even if he wasn't fully recovered yet, so he ground out an apology from between gritted teeth and swore the oath that saw the fifteen thousand galleons transferred into the Black vaults. But his humiliation was not finished yet, as the Chief Warlock spoke up then.

"Lucius Abraxus Malfoy, under the rules of the Wizengamot, you are fined a further four thousand galleons for falsely claiming the rights of the Head of a Noble House, and you are to remain silenced and immobilised for the remainder of this session to prevent you interrupting proceedings any further. The points raised as to the right of the Minor House of Malfoy to hold a seat on the Wizengamot will be formally investigated and if found correct, the House of Malfoy's seat will be revoked, to be awarded to the newly ennobled House of Tonks. Furthermore, due to your breaches of the Wizengamot's rules of etiquette and behaviour and false claims, the House of Malfoy is banned from holding any seat on the Wizengamot for twenty years, and _you_ are _permanently_ banned from ever sitting on the Wizengamot again. So Mote It Be!" Griselda also murmured "So Mote It Be!" and everyone felt the decree being accepted by the magic of the court.

Narcissa was sitting in the gallery as required by her husband and she paled at that, because she knew who Lucius would take this humiliation and setback out on, and she seriously doubted that she would survive the experience. As a true daughter of the House of Black, she knew that there was only one thing that could save her from this and she slipped out of the Wizengamot chamber to get herself into position to do it. As Arcturus and Sirius exited the chamber when the session was finished, Narcissa cast herself at Arcturus' feet and begged to be given sanctuary by the House of Black. He looked at Sirius with a question, as Sirius would become her Lord and Head of House if he took her back into the house, and at Sirius' nod he ordered her to stand.

Once she had done so with Sirius' helping hand Arcturus spoke. "Narcissa Malfoy, you have been cast from the House of Black for consorting with your husband, the branded slave of the common Half-Blood impostor Tom Riddle who falsely styled himself as Lord Voldemort. If I give you sanctuary and accept you back into the House of Black you must forsake the Minor House of Malfoy and have no further dealings with any member of that house. Do you accept this condition?"

Narcissa bowed her head, tears starting from her eyes at the thought of forsaking her son, but she knew in her heart that he wasn't really her son any more so she nodded. "I do My Lord."

Arcturus opened his arms. "Then I welcome you back into the family as a daughter of the House of Black Narcissa Irma Black, I hereby annul your marriage to Lucius Abraxus Malfoy and give you sanctuary in the House of Black on the condition that you forsake the House of Malfoy and any and all members of that house from this day forward. So Mote It Be!"

They were standing in the open doorway of the Wizengamot chamber, so the magic in the chamber pulsed noticeably as it accepted this decree, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that the decree was official as Narcissa was embraced by her Great Uncle. Lucius Malfoy was still in the chamber, trying to drum up support from the other Death Eaters and witnessed this. It was interesting to note that Crabbe was the only one who bothered to grab his arm to stop him getting himself killed by trying to attack the Blacks for this new humiliation. By the time Lucius returned to Malfoy Manor, Black elves had removed everything belonging to Narcissa and he just told their son that she had abandoned them.

Of course the current and next Lord Black's comments about Tom Riddle had been noted as planned and many people started looking into this, getting quite angry at the ones who had recruited them to the Death Eaters' cause with promises of Lord Voldemort leading the true Purebloods to take their rightful place, with their feet on the necks of all the Blood Traitors, Half-Bloods and Mudbloods, when in fact their 'Lord Voldemort' was no Lord at all, as the Blacks had said he was actually a common bastard who barely rated as a Half-Blood with a mother who was barely a witch and a father who was an ordinary muggle, and what's more was too much of a coward to admit his own name. The marked Death Eaters and other fanatical believers who were too blind to see the truth remained faithful to the cause, but most of their support quickly dried up and disappeared after that.

Sirius invited Narcissa to share the Black's London Townhouse with him and Arcturus again showed his cunning by appointing her to the role of Steward of the Black family's houses, allocating another Black Baroness title to her (as Narcissa _Black_ ) to shore up her position in the Wizengamot. Narcissa was better trained in the myriad aspects of politics in Magical Britain than Sirius as he had rebelled against his parents and refused to learn (not that his parents would have done a good job of teaching him anyway), while she and her sisters had all accepted their training as true daughters of the House of Black…. until Andromeda chose to forsake her family and follow her heart, marrying her best friend, the Muggleborn Ted Tonks, when her parents tried to force to marry the disgusting inbred scion of the House of Flint anyway.

The Wizarding war had started by this stage and Arcturus had decided that he didn't like the look of what this Voldemort was doing, so when Andi's parents _demanded_ that she be expelled from the House of Black he just let them believe that he'd done so. It was around that time that he also formally changed his Heir from his son Orion to his grandson Sirius, because he refused to allow the House of Black to be subjugated by this Voldemort and he knew that Orion was too weak to stand up to pressure from his wife and other members of the house who were following Voldemort. The only reason that Narcissa got the title that her parents had promised in the marriage negotiations with the rich Minor House of Malfoy was that he was trying to be even handed, so as other daughters of the House of Black had received this, she did as well.

* * *

When Harry performed the inheritance test to confirm his right to claim his father's family titles as Duke Potter, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter, Earl Peverell, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Peverell and Baron Gryffindor, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Gryffindor (the fact that the House of Potter came from Morgan Le Fay's bloodline and the House of Gryffindor came from Myddrin Emrys's bloodline gave a hint as to why Harry was so powerful), they discovered something interesting. Through his mother, he was _also_ rightfully Baron Slytherin, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Slytherin, and Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Ifan.

This in turn led to inheritance tests being done for the other children, and Hermione was found to be Baroness Ravenclaw, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ravenclaw on her mother's side, and Baroness Dagworth-Granger, Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Dagworth and Ancient Druid House of Granger on her father's side. As well as Baron Longbottom, Heir to the titles of Earl Longbottom and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom, Neville was found to be Baron Hufflepuff, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff on his mother's side. Susan was Countess Bones, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones on her father's side, and Head of the Ancient Druid House of Rhys on her mother's side. Luna was Lady Lovegood, Heiress to the titles of Baroness Lovegood and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Lovegood on her father's side and Heiress to Head of the Most Ancient Druid House of Cathbad on her mother's side. Daphne was Baroness Greengrass, Heiress the titles of Countess Greengrass and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Greengrass on her father's side while Astoria was Lady Greengrass, Heiress to her mother's titles of Baroness Bodhmall and Head the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bodhmall. Dora was Lady Tonks, Heiress to her mother as Baroness Tonks and her father as Head of the Noble House of Tonks.

Hestia had no title, but this was rectified by Minerva making her Heiress to the titles of Countess Ross and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ross, as well as head of her other houses, so that she became Baroness Jones. In the time since Harry had come back into their lives, the adults had had many discussions about what was likely to happen in their world, and the ones who had lived through the First Wizarding War knew all too well what the risks of the upcoming war were, the ones who had lived through Grindelwald's war as well even more so. This led to the realisation that the majority of them didn't have heirs for their houses, so it was agreed that the children would be made heirs to any of their houses which didn't currently have heirs. The children who currently had houses of their own were included in that, and they used the same blood adoption ritual that Sirius had with Harry to defeat any challenges to their inheriting the titles.

* * *

The Potter, Black and Peverell families and some of the other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses had become Noble when they merged their bloodlines with the families of the rulers of Britain over time. Many of the other Most Ancient and to a lesser degree Ancient Houses had also become Noble when the rulers of Britain were courting the most powerful Druids' support so they bribed them with titles (unless they remained dormant, only the Potter, Black and Ollivander lines had remained extant for most of the two thousand year history of Magical Britain, which in turn was why the Potter and Black families were by far the richest and most powerful houses in Magical Britain and among the richest and most powerful in Magical Europe), though few were made anything higher than Baron by this method. The more powerful of the Houses which had become Noble through merging the Druid and Noble bloodlines also gained additional titles through this practice, Earl as well as Baron.

The Druid Houses and the Gentry's Minor Houses which replaced them as lesser houses after the Wizengamot was created in the Sixteenth Century generally had one Wizengamot vote, a Baron/Baroness title two votes, an Earl/Countess four and a Duke eight. Some of the Noble Houses held a number of titles, and on top of that the votes of the Most Ancient Houses which were extant before the Norman Conquest were multiplied by three, two for the Ancient Houses which had been created between the Norman Conquest and the formation of the Wizengamot (IE: a Minor house had one vote, a Baron of a Noble House two, an Ancient Druid House two, an Earl of an Ancient House eight and a Duke of a Most Ancient House twenty four), which meant that between their houses they had a considerable voting block both in the Wizengamot and on the Hogwarts Board. Not to mention the fact that their representatives on the Hogwarts Board held the proxies of all four of the founders' houses, so there was no way that they could have failed to get what they wanted through at Hogwarts.

* * *

While only Dumbledore's supporters were worried about him being ousted as Headmaster per se, most of the 'traditional' Purebloods had an issue with the changes which were stripping away the automatic favouritism and advantages that the ruling Purebloods had enjoyed at Hogwarts for the last century at least (more like two or three), as their increasingly magically and intellectually weaker children suddenly had to succeed on their own merits and for the most part, they couldn't. The ICW once again helped squash the Pureblood parents' arguments when they claimed that Hogwarts was falsifying these new results, because the statistics showed that very few students with NEWTs from Hogwarts had succeeded in getting jobs overseas so most of them had returned to Magical Britain, hence the Ministry's policy to employ so-called Purebloods over witches and wizards of 'lesser' blood status with better qualifications and greater ability (many Purebloods in the Wizengamot were quite concerned to see that the ICW had statistics to prove that ones who were unemployable overseas had returned to Britain and taken jobs at the Ministry and St Mungo's from those who _would_ have been employable overseas as they had the required skills, not about the blatant favouritism and unfairness of the practice of course, only the fact that those foreigners knew about it).

This not only helped them squash the arguments about the changes at Hogwarts, it helped throw the Ministry of Magic into disarray when the Wizengamot required that they provide formal documentation on the Ministry's hiring and promotion rules, practices and statistics to prove their claims that the information from the ICW was false, because they were now running around, _trying_ to come up with some rules and figures which could refute the evidence supplied by the ICW. Needless to say, they were not having much success in this. St Mungo's was in a similar position because while it wasn't part of the Ministry per se, it mainly relied on funding from the Ministry so the Wizengamot could demand the same information from them. If anything St Mungo's was in a worse position because ones who had lost family members there were bound to be coming after them when it was made public that they had been firing the more qualified and capable healers who might have saved their family members to give unqualified Purebloods jobs (and not asking questions about the blood status of the healers at the private healing houses that many of them used for their own families).

* * *

It was interesting to see how willing the so-called Light Houses were to ally themselves with their 'sworn enemies' in the 'Dark Houses' to protect the 'traditions of Magical Britain' when the only significant Most Ancient House that had defected from the Wizards Council Alliance was the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan. The rest of the Most Ancient Houses had honoured the agreements made in the Sixteenth Century, as did many of the Ancient Houses (especially the Druid Houses). The 'traditional' factions were actually made up of more Noble Houses than Noble and Ancient, their common ground being their belief in Pureblood supremacy and maintaining the status quo more than anything else, because they were worried that the oldest and most powerful houses of Magical Britain seemed determined to pull apart the world that they'd made very comfortable for themselves in the last fifteen to twenty years and replace it with something where commoners and even worse Mudbloods had a say in the way their world was run (getting that right was obviously the exception that proved the rule).

The traditional factions would have been far more frightened if they realised that there was another, Demi-Magical, world now growing in the space between the Magical and Muggle worlds of Britain. The Black and Potter families especially were working with parts of Her Majesty's government to give Ex-Weres (the appellation Exwere had been quickly taken up by them and the others to show their status), Muggleborns, Half-Bloods and Squibs (they'd also adapted the American parlance and used Maj or Nomaj to indicate whether someone used magic or not, as with the Exwere tag, this was purely to identify capabilities, and only children were allowed to call the goblins and elves 'little people') the magical, non-magical and vocational education and training and employment opportunities that they had been denied by Magical Britain and they'd missed out on in Non-Magical Britain. Most of the schools and businesses in Demi-Britain were just starting up, but they were building the infrastructure they needed while they tried to fix issues in Magical Britain. Another part of this was that they knew that there was another war coming, so with their agreement most of the teens and adults were being prepared to do their part, working with Maj/Nomaj teams. The thing about that which would terrify Magical Britain if they knew was that Demi-Britain was _already_ getting close to the size of Magical Britain with only a small fraction of the people they hoped to help, and for that matter the majority of them were more powerful magically and/or non-magically that most of the witches and wizards in Magical Britain.

* * *

While they were trying to explain to some of the so-called Muggleborn where they fit into the magical family bloodlines, Jean made a very interesting observation, that some of them appeared to have a case to show that they had more right to be the Heads of the 'traditional' Pureblood families than the ones currently holding those positions, because they were descended from the first born sons of the Head of the House, rather than second or third son, or the daughters of the house through marriage into other houses. The obvious argument to that would be that inheritance could only be passed to witches and wizards, but the point was they _were_ witches and wizards, and therefore the only question was whether inheritance had to be via an unbroken line, which dormant houses being reactivated appeared to refute. As this appeared to be a delightfully simple and fractious way of taking over the Noble Houses which drove the fight against them, they started researching the legal and magical connotations of this. Gringott was delighted, because once again these humans had come up with something that the wizards would never have thought of, and he couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

While they didn't name them, they were all thinking about a few houses in particular that they wished they could use this on, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan, the Noble and Ancient Houses of Abbott, Nott and Selwyn, the Noble Houses of Smith, Rosier, Rowle and Yaxley and others, as many as possible of the houses which were the power and/or money behind the 'traditional' Purebloods. The House of Macmillan in particular was a figurehead for the Purebloods, so if the Macmillan family magic accepted that one of the Demi-Britons was in fact the rightful Earl Macmillan and Head of the House of Macmillan they'd definitely throw the Purebloods off balance, which would hopefully last long enough to take over most of the houses quickly, because once they started they'd want to get control before the deposed families had a chance to transfer funds or property or destroy any of the history of the houses. If they did this right, they would be able to wipe out the Pureblood controlled culture and set Magical Britain on the path to recovery, the only thing about this plan that Gringott wasn't happy about was the fact that they could well be waiting years for Demi-Britons to show primacy on the lines of enough of major houses for them to be able make the move to overturn the controlling Pureblood families. They _had_ confirmed that the theory was valid with a few houses where the last members were Death Eaters, as the Demi-Britons successfully claimed Head of House while they were being tried, and then cast them out of the family to strip them of their family magic and names.

Most of them were amused about the fact that while they were working to take control of the Wizengamot, the _main_ reason for doing this was so they could overturn the autocratic system that had controlled Magical Britain for the last five hundred years at least, and they'd been using political pressure to influence decisions for a couple of hundred years before that, following the example of the English Barons. Magical Britain had been left behind by most of the rest of the world, both magical and non-magical, well over a century ago. The Noble Houses of the Wizengamot had dictated the direction of Magical Britain since its creation, and British wizards had been using their magic to get titles by any means they could up until it was made clear to them by the International Confederation of Wizards at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century that this contravened the Statute of Secrecy and they would be punished if they persisted in the practice.

The fact that the Purebloods (mostly) with hereditary titles controlled everything and tried to push anyone whom they considered of lesser blood status out of their world was patently unfair, but the irony of the situation was that they had to take over the Pureblood houses _before_ they could do anything about it. Now that Jean's idea had given them a way to do that, they were working on the next step, the revolution. The way they planned to do this was to use articles in Magical Britain's newspapers to inform the 'ordinary' Magical Britons of how politics in the non-magical world, and other parts of the magical world, worked, then point out how the powerful Pureblood houses mostly only passed laws for their own benefit. With the businesses of Demi-Britain existing in Magical Britain and the hiring changes they were forcing on the Ministry and St Mungo's, they were bringing increasing numbers of Muggleborns and ex-weres back into Magical Britain and using this to skew the population away from the perceived Pureblood majority.

The purpose of this was to get the population ready for their proposal to revise the Wizengamot, replacing the existing fifty three Wizengamot seats with the Wizengamot's House of Lords (borrowing the name from Britain's non-magical government) made up of twenty three hereditary seats, and House of Commons with another seventy nine seats, the holders of which would be elected by their peers to sit for a term of three years. The Wizengamot's vote weightings would still apply, which of course meant that the minority House of Lords would retain the power to overrule the majority House of Commons, but it would be making a big step towards democracy in Magical Britain, and it would also give the untitled people and Muggleborns who made up the majority of Magical Britain a voice in how their world was run. Of course the fact that the Wizards Council Alliance would be making up most of the House of Lords because they held the votes to guarantee their right to claim those seats under the existing rules to qualify for a Wizengamot seat meant that they would be able to continue opposing any restrictive laws or measures.

* * *

While Harry and the other children had a role in some of the goings on, once the school year finished they spent most of their time at Potter Manor, continuing their training and having the time of their lives, because what child isn't going to love being somewhere they can see unicorns, hypogriffs, griffins and _dragons_? The Weasleys were wide eyed at everything, because except for Bill and Charlie they hadn't really been to Potter Manor before, but once they got over the shock they jumped right in. It was over the summer that they discovered that Harry had _another_ rare talent, because he started talking to the dragons in parseltongue. Gringott and the goblins were delighted to learn this, because it was over a century since they'd had a British parseltongue to talk to their dragons so they'd been having to bring parseltongues in from overseas (Generally snake charmers from North Africa or India).

Harry had already dispelled the myth that metamorphmagi could not have animangus forms because when Sirius was reminiscing about the fun times they'd had running together in their animal forms on the nights that Remus was the wolf one night, Harry started thinking about Sirius' dog form and his father's stag form. As he wondered what his form would have been if he were an animagus, an image came to him of a Mngwa cub much like Crookshanks and a blink of the eye later a Mngwa cub was sitting in his place, as his metamophmagus transformations had obviously made self transformation easy for him. They urgently called for him to come back to his human form, because the biggest risk in the initial animagus transformations was not being able to return, but he instantly reappeared in his human form. Sirius and Minerva mused that the important things in animagus transformations were the ability to transform yourself, a clear image of your animal form and strength of will, all of which Harry had in abundance, so they asked him to try changing again, which he did with no trouble at all. Being a cheeky little boy, he changed into his Mngwa cat form while he was a Mngwa and changed back to his human form from that, and while Minerva, Hermione and some of the others scolded him about being more careful, they all agreed that there was no question that he was an animagus. Remus said that he couldn't when Harry asked him if he could change too so that they could run together like Sirius was saying, but Harry cut him off with the perennial children's question…. "Why?" That stopped Remus and, emboldened by the fact that Harry's 'why?'s had already changed his life, he looked inside himself, to see a wolf, a Dire Wolf like the ones on the Potter Estate.

It took Remus months to achieve what Harry had done in the blink of an eye, but come Harry's first summer at Potter Manor, there were a Wolfhound, Dire Wolf, European Lioness and three Mngwa cubs running together at Potter Manor, and many of the others were working on their animagus transformations as well. It came as little surprise when other ex-weres who tried found that their animal forms were wolves as well. There was also little surprise that Dora and Hermione managed their animagus transformations before Remus, because Dora had even more experience in self transformation than Harry and Hermione's memory and will were almost a match for Harry's. Dora's lioness form was interesting, but Harry confirmed that memories of them were in the Black family magic and they agreed that it had probably come from that... Hermione's Mngwa form was even more interesting, and it had many of the group, including Roger and Jean, looking between her and Harry and wondering just what this meant, as none of them were buying the argument that the children had both gotten their forms by way of their familiaral bond with Crookshanks.

* * *

They soon found their fears confirmed that the Weasleys who were going to need the most help to straighten them out were Percy and Ginny, because they had been Molly's darlings and she'd worked hardest to mould them into what she wanted her son and daughter to be. Percy primarily had a towering case of superiority complex which that needed to be knocked to down to size and tempered with the realisation that accolades and respect needed to be _earned_. Ginny was a rather more disturbing case, because they found that Molly had been filling her head with the Harry Potter legend rubbish since she was in the cradle, telling her that Grandpa Albus was going to make sure that she would be Lady Potter and they would live happily ever after. They actually feared that her mother and Dumbledore might have gone so far as to use compulsions and/or potions on her to force this because Ginny had a seemingly unshakable belief that this was the way it would be.

Unfortunately Ginny's deep seated Harry fantasies meant that more drastic measures than they'd originally planned were going to be needed, but they weren't prepared to rip apart the memories of a not quite six year old girl or subject her to any more mind magics so Jean and Andi talked Roger into agreeing to let Hermione make something she was doing most nights anyway a permanent arrangement. Harry still had nightmares just about every night, whether about the night he saw his mother killed, what the Dursleys had done to him or the nasty and rather strange memories that that thing in his head had been pushing into his dreams up until the goblins removed it six months before. Hermione sensed when Harry was having these nightmares, quite often before Hedwig came for her, and she went to hold him. With Hermione holding him, Harry could sleep without nightmares so she invariably stayed with him until they woke up together in the morning.

What Jean and Andi pointed out to Roger was that, as they were seven and eight year old children who weren't doing anything wrong and invariably woke up in the same bed most mornings anyway, if they went to bed together it would be easier and less upset for either of them or their familiars. On top of that, coming to accept that this was the way it was and this was the way it was going to stay should help Ginny free herself from these unhealthy beliefs that she'd been programmed with about her fate with Harry. One minute she'd be a delightful little girl laughing because she'd managed to make her big brother Charlie blush because he liked Hestia, the next she'd be glaring balefully at Hermione because Harry was with her, it wasn't normal, even for a crush born out of hero worship.

It took Roger a while to accept the idea, but he knew that they were good kids and were already inseparable, and he'd heard Harry screaming from those nightmares before they started silencing his room…. so if his little girl doing what made her happy (looking after the one who meant so much to her) could help free him from those horrors, he couldn't bring himself to argue with her and Jean.

* * *

When Harry and Hermione went back to school, they had skipped another year, so the rest of the ones in the class were at least a year older than Hermione, and nearly two years older than Harry. This still wasn't enough to make them anything close to Harry or Hermione's level though, so they tested out again at Christmas and started after the break in the next year up, and after moving up three years of classes they were finally with students who could keep up with them, for a few months anyway. At least they were finishing primary school that year so they would be getting out of the system and doing high school with tutors or at the Demi-Britain schools. Meanwhile they were studying magic at Potter Manor with the others (their magic had settled down enough now to have wands made, and Garrick Ollivander made up a Rowan wand for Harry with three of Fawkes' tail feathers for the core, one from the wand that matched Harry but was barely enough to handle the power that he already had so it was bound to be overloaded as he grew, the second from the brother wand that Riddle had had and the final one that Fawkes had dropped just before she left, he acquired his other wand when he called for the return of all Heirlooms of his houses that had been stolen by others, because the Elder Wand came to him as the rightful Head of the House of Peverell and accepted him as its master... the strange thing with that was that Dumbledore had tried to break it before it was taken off him to stop anyone else being able to wield the power of the Elder Wand, but it came back to Harry whole, just six inches shorter like his Rowan wand... and Garrick had also made up two wands for Hermione, one with three dragon heart strings for the core and the other with seven unicorn tail hairs), who were also churning through their non-magical education there. The advantage they had at the Manor was that they could progress at their own rate without worrying about other students, so they were moving ahead almost as fast as Harry and Hermione.

At Hogwarts, Bill and Hestia were in their Sixth year, Dora and Charlie in Fourth year and Percy was in his First year. At least being around younger children like Harry and Hermione who could do so much more than him over summer had managed to deflate the overblown opinion of himself that his mother had instilled in him and his brothers, Hestia, Tonks and the professors all reported that he was actually behaving well at Hogwarts.

Of course, whether he would keep up that good behaviour when he found out that the twins would be starting a year behind him with Hermione, Daphne, Luna and Harry was another question altogether, because by the 'old' rules, that was a year early for the twins, three years early for Hermione, Daphne and Harry and _four_ years early for Luna (as she was two months younger than Harry). This meant that there would be two ten year olds and four others ranging from almost nine down to almost eight starting in September, and they were actually looking forward to the outrage.

They had decided to wait until they had a good batch of students ready to start before they slapped Magical Britain in the face with the fact that they'd allowed one self centred old man to put the children of Magical Britain _and_ the secret of the Magical world at risk for over forty five years by passing his law to make it illegal for children to begin their magical education at Hogwarts until after they had turned eleven, when the Hogwarts Charter (which was immutable, incontrovertible _and_ had been ratified at every major landmark along Magical Britain's legal timeline since Hogwarts was founded) clearly stated that children _must_ begin their magical training as soon as their magic begins to present itself noticeably to protect them and others from the dangers of accidental magic, which was _also_ supported by the Statute of Secrecy's requirement to prevent displays of magic exposing magic to the non-magical world. They were planning to wait until the traditional Purebloods began bleating that it was illegal for children to start at Hogwarts that young and then trot out the relevant part of the Hogwarts Charter, using that and the official legal opinion of the ICW that the current practices of Magical Britain not only clearly contravened the legal requirements of the Charter, they _also_ placed the secret of the magical world at risk.

Frank, Alice and Amelia had agreed that it would be better for Neville and Sue to train at the Manor for another year and start with Astoria and Ginny next year because they weren't quite as advanced as the others, so by waiting and starting with the younger girls, they were less likely to get disheartened about being left behind. For their part, Nev and Sue weren't at all worried about Luna moving ahead of them, because she was scarily brilliant like Hermione so it was obvious that her place was with her and Harry, and Daphne was up there with them too.


	7. Claiming Hogwarts

**A quick word of caution to those who like the stories here but feel the need to correct the writers. The amount of effort that goes into writing a story can be considerable, especially the research to give the story some sort of plausible underpinnings, and this in turn quite often makes writing more of a chore than fun for us. Trying to come up with something new and interesting that fits into the space you're writing in once you've written a few dozen stories adding up to millions of words and read far more is often rather a chore as well. For this reason, having people try to correct us when we're already struggling to keep going tends to make many of us more inclined to just give up writing for you folk here altogether and concentrate our efforts on our own stories in the real world, which we can be paid for. If the writing style offends you because we're having trouble getting motivated on the story of the day (and if you're actually counting the words it must), it would be better for you, me and everyone else if you just found another story that _doesn't_ offend you to read. I apologise to those rare few of you who actually do us the kindness of making the effort to tell us when you like and appreciate our stories, but getting lectured when I was fighting to get a workable structure established for this world was just about enough to make me pack it in here.**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.****

Dora, Bill and the others at Hogwarts had been getting extra training in their subjects through the year (as well as the older ones taking extra-curricular classes in things like Alchemy, Advanced Arithmancy and Ancient Studies), so Dora, Charlie and Hagrid did their OWLs at the end of the year and except for Bill and Hestia they were all advancing a year come September. While Bill and Hestia were going into Seventh year so they wouldn't advancing, they'd started working on their chosen masteries at the beginning of Sixth year, so they only got a few of the easier NEWTs out of the way at the end of the year, but they'd be gaining their masteries along with most of their NEWTs at the end of Seventh year. Charlie and Hagrid got an early start on their masteries in Care of Magical Creatures because Wilhelmina Grubbley-Plank, the witch who Minerva had gotten in to replace their obviously ineffective (going by the fact that he'd lost most of his limbs) Magical Creatures Professor Silvanus Kettleburn was quite happy to take the two of them on as apprentices while they were students.

Minerva had also had the source of the curse on the Defence Professor's position located and removed before she hired Remus to replace the last professor, so the students were getting competent Defence training at last. This was the first serious job Remus had ever landed in Magical Britain, because earning nine outstanding NEWTs _and_ gaining his Defence Mastery just out of Hogwarts had meant nothing to the bigots of his home, to whom he was nothing but a dark creature. They even tried to have his mastery taken off of him when they realised that he was in fact a werewolf, so as Dumbledore had already turned his friends against him by then he moved to the Continent for work.

When he saw the news of James and Lily's murders though, Remus immediately contacted Dumbledore to find out what happened to Harry and make plans to come back and look after him but Dumbledore would only say that Harry was safe with his Aunt and forbade him from going anywhere near him. He fought with Dumbledore over this for a year before giving up and coming home to look for Harry himself, but he'd never known where Petunia and her family lived, or even what their surname was, so he'd spent over four years living hand to mouth as he moved about the Greater London area searching for him by the time he caught Harry's scent in Crawley the day the Grangers rescued him.

Percy was beginning to see how the Alliance 'family' worked when he was called back in to sit the Second year exams after completing the normal exams at the end of his First year at Hogwarts, and he heard that Charlie and Dora had both done their OWLs, so he wasn't too surprised to hear that the twins and others would be starting as Third years with him after he was told that they'd also sat their First and Second year exams. He was still pretentious enough to get excited to hear that everyone would be moving into the Lords Tower that was reserved for the Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient and Ancient Noble Houses, and that while it was the right of _any_ Head or Heir of a Most Ancient or Ancient Noble House, no-one but them knew about it. Percy was also clever and ambitious enough to appreciate the advantage that the prestige and extra training they were getting would give him once he left Hogwarts, so he was determined not to do anything to make his father reconsider taking him in after his true parentage was revealed.

* * *

By the end of the summer holidays, everything was in place, and after considerable debate in the family, it was decided to honour the tradition of making their first trip to Hogwarts at least on the Hogwarts Express. On the September First, they appeared on Platform 9 ¾ and quickly boarded the Hogwarts Express to claim two compartments. Hestia, Charlie, Percy and the twins took one and Bill, Dora, Harry, Hermione, Luna and Daphne took the other. No-one seemed to notice that none of them had their trunks or pets with them, just one bottomless bag in each compartment for their robes and such.

Bill, Hestia, Charlie and Dora had all gotten quieter and pulled away from the other students over the last year and a bit. Even so, it was a shock for the ones who tried to kick the Firsties and Percy out of their compartments so they could begin worming their way into the new Head Boy and Head Girl's inner circle when Bill went off at them for trying to interfere with his girlfriend's family, and Hestia said the same in regard to her boyfriend. Being told off by the angry Head Boy and Head Girl when they were trying to curry favour with them was not at all what the Seventh Years had been expecting, so they scurried off to rethink the situation. The only one who managed to get into their compartments was a Gryffindor girl heading into her Third year who Bill found crying in the corridor with her trunk after she had had to draw her wand to refuse the inappropriate suggestions of some older students who came into her compartment.

The ones in the compartment were put on notice by Bill that they would be severely dealt with as soon as they reached Hogwarts, especially the prefects, but Penny was safely ensconced in the compartment with Harry and most of the girls by then. There was no question about what the others were asking as they looked from Penny to him once they'd talked to her enough to decide they liked her, so Harry obliged. "Penny is Lady Penelope Anne Clearwater, Heiress to the titles of Countess Clearwater and Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Clearwater. The House of Clearwater _was_ one of the guiding families, but it isn't currently part of the Alliance because I believe her Grandfather was either coerced or compelled by Dumbledore to join his so-called 'Light' Alliance when he reactivated the house just before he left Hogwarts forty years ago."

Dora gave him, as the only one present with the authority to decide this, a questioning look and at his nod asked Penny whether she wanted to join their group, and if so whether she minded them talking to her father about rejoining the Wizards Council Alliance, and for that matter whether she'd be willing to check whether she had been sorted into the right house. This of course required an explanation.

"Our families are all part of what's called the Wizards Council Alliance Penny. The Alliance is made up of the houses of the guiding families that led the magical people of Britain for one and a half thousand years up until the Wizengamot was created as part of the Druids Council and the Wizards Council that the Druids Council became a thousand years ago to try and ward off the persecution of the Christian church. As Harry just told us, the House of Clearwater was one of the guiding families who sat on the councils but they must have gone dormant at some point if your house was only reactivated by your Grandfather forty years ago…."

It wasn't hard to read the dubious look that Penny was sending Harry's way so Dora answered that.

"Why should you listen to a little boy like Harry? Well for a start, Harry has a just about perfect memory and he remembers _everything_ he sees, hears or reads, but more importantly, Harry is the most powerful one person here…." She looked musingly at Penny. "I think it's time for proper introductions here, Lady Clearwater, may I have the honour of introducing Lord Henry James Potter, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter among others, but you're more likely to know of him as Harry Potter."

That had Penny whipping her head around to stare at her in disbelief. "But Harry Potter died! He was killed by that Muggle family he was left with almost two years ago!"

Dora shook her head grimly. "Almost, but not quite! Take my word for it that you do _n_ _o_ _t_ want to know what they did to him Penny, but Harry was rescued and brought back into Magical Britain around the time he was supposedly killed. He needed to be protected against Dumbledore and learn how to take his proper place in our world, so we let Magical Britain believe he was dead while he was being trained to survive them. It was Hermione and her parents who found him in the street in Muggle London and as luck would have it, Professor Lupin was in the area searching for Harry at the time and caught his scent, so he followed that scent to them. Professor Lupin picked up the fact that Hermione was magical as well and he convinced the Grangers to bring me in to help confirm how Harry had healed his injuries, my parents too because Mum was his closest available magical relative and Dad was the Potters' family solicitor… Anyway, Dad got them to take Harry to Gringotts so he could get the protection of claiming his house and Director Gringott told us that the Potters were friends of the goblin people and he's been part of much of what has been done for Harry since then."

At another nod from Harry and matching nods from the others, she went on. "Harry is also Lord Gryffindor and Lord Slytherin and Head and Heir to a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, and he will become the Black Heir when my Great Grandfather passes the title of Head of the House of Black on to Cousin Sirius. Hermione is Lady Ravenclaw, Lady Dagworth-Granger and Head and Heiress of a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses. Daphne, Luna and I are all Heiresses to a number of Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, even though the House of Tonks is only Noble…. In my opinion Bill's most important title is my boyfriend, but he is also Heir to the Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Weasley and a number of other Most Ancient and Ancient Houses, Hestia, Charlie and the other Weasleys in the next compartment are pretty much the same, but Charlie is also Lord Prewett, Head of the Noble House of Prewett, so we represent most of the guiding families. Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Daphne's sister Astoria and Ginevra Weasley will be starting next year and are pretty much the same as most of us, the major differences being that Neville is also Lord Hufflepuff, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff and Susan is Lady Bones, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones and Head of the Ancient Druid House of Rhys."

Penny was looking at her in shock and Dora smiled. "Yeah, welcome to our world Penny…. Now as Harry has told you, you are part of our world so we'd like to keep you safe and help you realise your potential. But to do that, we need you to join our classes and move into the Lords Tower with us." She stopped and looked at the girl. "Do you _feel_ like a Gryffindor Penny? Because I'm just not seeing it, I'd bet if you were properly sorted you would have ended up in Ravenclaw…. Now please don't take this out on them because it wasn't their fault, they don't even know about it, but my money would be on Dumbledore having you put into Gryffindor so that you would be in the right place to force you to become either Bill, Charlie or Percy's girlfriend and wife. I'd say Percy because he was his mother's favourite and she'd have to kill off Bill or Charlie for him to become Lord Weasley or Lord Prewett, which would have been a little obvious, for that matter the House of Clearwater was ranked above the Houses of Weasley and Prewett and richer than both of them put together at the time."

The look was a mixture of shock and anger now and Dora nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but like I said it _wasn't_ their fault. Bill was supposed to be single again by now because I was supposed to have been killed off, and I doubt that Dumbledore would have let Charlie stay with Hestia because she was too strong willed for him to control. What I meant about re-sorting though is that the kids..." (Ducking a hex that Harry threw at her with a grin but getting caught by the tamer one that Luna cast) "have decided that they want to be together in Hufflepuff so that they'll all be in the same classes to make guarding them easier, and also so that their free time is together for their extra classes. Bill, Charlie and Percy are being re-sorted to get them into Hufflepuff too, Bill and Charlie would have been there in the first place if it wasn't for Dumbledore's interference, but Percy was meant to be Slytherin, cunning and ambitious is our Percy."

Luna spoke up in the silence that followed. "Don't worry Penny, you'll be with Charlie. He's really nice, well they all are except for Ronald, he was always mean to me when I was playing with Ginny."

Dora felt she should warn Penny. "Luna is a true seer Penny, and she's too nice to make a joke about something like this. You can try and fight it but if she says it, it's meant to be, and Charlie _is_ nice."

She was wondering what would happen to Hestia when, trying to make a joke of it, Penny asked "So are Charlie and I the only ones who are fated to be together?" but unfortunately Luna took the question seriously.

"Oh no! Charlie will be with another girl as well, someone called Cecilia. Harry will be with Hermione and me, and maybe a couple of French Veela as well later on, but it's not certain whether that will happen. Bill will be with Dora and Hestia, Percy with a girl called Alicia, Fred with two girls named Angelina and Katie, George with Daphne and Astoria, Neville will be with with Sue and Ginny will be with Draco. Did you just mean us or were you asking about the others?"

Everyone rushed to assure her that that was quite enough, because they couldn't handle hearing anything more, they wished that they could unhear what they _had_ heard. One thing the others noted though was that Hermione seemed neither surprised nor unhappy about what she heard about Harry with her, Luna and those others, as if she'd already heard and accepted this news.

Dora tried to shake off the wish to be obliviated of what she'd just heard about her, Bill and Hestia as she formally requested Penny's permission for them to contact her father, as Head of the House of Clearwater, to obtain his written authorisation for Penny to be resorted and join the group in their classes and the Lords' Tower, and have her accepted as his Heir. They would also be asking the House of Clearwater to rejoin the Wizards Council Alliance. As soon as Penny agreed Dora pulled out her communications mirror to call her father. By the time the Hogwarts Express had reached Hogsmeade, Ted had called back so that Penny's father could hear from her that this was what she wanted, and she was formally accepted as his heir once everything had been agreed.

As soon as Bill returned, Dora dragged him off to find somewhere to talk in private and asked him whether his feelings for Hestia had changed in the last year. This of course meant that she had to tell him what Luna had predicted about who would end up with who. Bill looked her in the eye and swore on his magic that his feelings for Hestia had _not_ changed from a friend, but gently reminded her how many times Luna's predictions had been proven wrong in near on two years. She cried for a while but they agreed to talk to Hestia and Luna about it to prevent it festering and getting in the way of their relationships with each other. They knew that Luna's telling them this was totally innocent, because for all she saw with her _sight_ , she was still a sweet and innocent seven year old girl who probably just saw this as her friends in this big happy family of their's working out who they were closest to, not realising the upheaval her pronouncements caused.

When they arrived at Hogsmeade, those who were starting at Hogwarts once again kept to tradition and took their first trip into Hogwarts in the boats, and they entered the castle with the rest of the students to be sorted.

* * *

While folk lore said that the sorting hat had been created by Godric Gryffindor to sort students, in fact it went back several generations and about four centuries further in Godric's family. Myrddin Emrys, better known as Merlin, was too vain to consider any but him to have the wisdom needed to properly advise Uther and Artur's descendants, the rulers of Britain. Therefore he bound a powerful image of himself which included most of his memories and some of his magic into a mage's hat which he created to be impervious to the ravages of time or man for the purpose of instructing his descendants on what to advise the rulers. Needless to say, Merlin's descendants soon tired of dealing with this much arrogance from a _hat_ so the hat, which insisted on being addressed as Myrddin, was locked away for a few centuries…. until one of Merlin's descendants, Godric Gryffindor and his fellow founders of Hogwarts were having a problem.

Most of the older Druid families were disparaging the four young witches and warlocks who had the impertinence to declare their school, this Hogwarts, to be the only place in the British Isles where witches and wizards could be properly trained to harness and make full use of their magic. The three oldest guiding families, the ones now known as the Potters who were descended from Morgan Le Fay, the Blacks who were descended from the Morrighan, and the Ollivanders, who were the most renowned creators of mage staffs in the British Isles (though they were making more of these new… wands than they were mage staffs nowadays) however supported them. This was the only thing that stopped the other Druid families tearing these upstarts' school down.

The Druid families' reactions to them and their school were making Hogwarts' founders panic and one of their biggest problems was that they were having trouble placing the students with the best masters to properly develop their potential, so Godric retrieved Merlin's mage hat from where it was hidden. They mixed threats, coercion and compulsions to make the hat sort the students into the most appropriate school house, and support the story that Godric had created it for that purpose.

For the last thousand years, Myrddin had endured what amounted to solitary confinement, being dusted off and trotted out just once a year to sort the next batch of hopeful witches and wizards into the most appropriate houses before being locked away again. The only change in this routine had been in the last forty five years or so because Dumbledore, the new Headmaster, had been compelling him to place selected students in the houses that he specified.

When Minerva took over Hogwarts and Harry called his lost heirlooms to him, the hat was one of the heirlooms that came to him and they had had many interesting discussions. Myrddin managed to convince Harry that he had really turned over a new leaf in his desperation to avoid enduring another thousand years of speaking to no-one but Hogwarts except for one night a year when he looked into the new students' heads and determined where best to place them. Once he was convinced of Myrddin's veracity, Harry used what he could see in the Gryffindor family magic to release Myrddin from the bindings and compulsions that Godric had placed over him when he bound him to being the sorting hat.

Freeing Myrddin from his bonds had gained them a powerful ally, because being fed magic by the ley lines like the rest of Hogwarts while he was incarcerated in Hogwarts for a thousand years had turned him into an incredibly powerful magical artefact, and a self aware entity like Hogwarts herself to boot. Being able to speak to no-one but Hogwarts most of the time for a thousand years meant that they had become rather close (Sirius laughingly called him Hogwarts' consort, which he did not appreciate),which in turn meant that Myrddin became the voice of Hogwarts, but it also made the garrulous entity desperate to please Harry and avoid being silenced again, so he wholeheartedly pledged himself to Harry. Neville was brought in at Hogwarts' request, and Hogwarts made a similar pledge to Harry, Hermione and him as the descendants of her founders.

* * *

Most of the family were laughing to themselves as they envisioned the pandemonium that was going to erupt when Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, returned from the dead to start at Hogwarts three years early. They watched as Hermione, Daphne and Luna were sorted into Hufflepuff as planned, taking in the growing muttering that surely these girls weren't old enough to be at Hogwarts, and settled back to watch the show as Pomona got up to the 'P's.

They had to laugh when Pomona called out "Lord Henry James Potter", then added "Harry Potter, are you here?" to make sure no-one had missed who this was, and the Great Hall erupted.

In the end Minerva had to stand and ask Hogwarts to silence the hall to regain order and let the sorting proceed, and Pomona didn't bother even trying to cover up her beaming smile as she waved Harry to the sorting stool. The noise would have erupted again when Harry Potter was sorted into _Hufflepuff_ if Minerva hadn't had Hogwarts keep most of them silenced.

Once Harry joined the girls where they were sitting at the end of the Hufflepuff table, grim human and goblin guards bearing the Black crest entered the hall and stationed themselves behind the students. The presence of the Black Guard kept everyone else away from them, because their reputation was formidable. The Hufflepuff prefects now understood why Professor Sprout had told them not to interfere with anyone who went to sit at the far end of the table after they were sorted, as it had obviously been in preparation for this. Of course, no-one knew that _only_ the Hufflepuff prefects had been told that, because they already knew where Harry and the others would be going. The twins being sorted into Hufflepuff at the very end of the sorting led to another swell in the noise levels, because everyone 'knew' that Weasleys were _always_ Gryffindors, just as they _knew_ the Potters were (even though Arthur's father had been Hufflepuff and his mother was Slytherin).

* * *

The more astute ones in the hall noted that the sorting hat hadn't been removed once all the new arrivals had been sorted, so they were looking forward to more excitement when Professor McGonagall stood and moved to the lectern at the front of the High Table dais. Minerva looked around until the noise had abated and then announced. "It has come to our attention that the sorting of a number of our students was interfered with by previous Hogwarts staff. Some of these students have requested permission to be resorted into their proper houses and this has been granted. If any other students believe that they have been placed in houses other than the ones they should have been and wish to avail themselves of this opportunity to be resorted, please contact your House Master or House Mistress now so that you may be added to the group to be resorted…."

She looked around for the ones that Bill had reported for what they'd tried to do to Penny on the Hogwarts Express. "While students are taking this up with their House Master or Mistress, the following students are to come forward…." She named the ones from the compartment and reflected as she waited for them to come forward that it was a good thing that she'd given in and made Rolanda House Mistress of Gryffindor when she became Headmistress, because she could see quite a number of Gryffindors with Rolanda who obviously wanted to be resorted.

When the last of the boys had grudgingly come forward, she pointed angrily at the two prefects and snapped. "For a start, hand over your prefect badges you two! Your behaviour on the Hogwarts Express was disgusting and you will never be put in a position of responsibility over other students again, especially girls!"

Once they'd fearfully handed their badges over she faced the other students, her voice ringing out over them. "These five sons of so-called reputable houses accosted a lone female student in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express and tried to force her to give in to their disgusting demands. The young lady, who was at least two years younger than any of these five, drew her wand on them and managed to escape with her virtue intact, for which I am relieved and grateful. Unfortunately, as she managed to prevent them actually doing anything to her I do not have grounds to expel them or have them put up on criminal charges, but they will be serving detention with Mister Hagrid at least once a week for the remainder of the school year. Take a good look at them ladies and ensure that you are not caught alone with any of them, as they have clearly shown that they regard any young ladies as fair game if they believe that they can get away with it."

The five sons of powerful Pureblood families were outraged, to have their reputations shredded by this _Half-Blood_ , just for trying to do what they had every right to do to Half-Bloods and Mudbloods. They were even more outraged when they looked to their peers for support and were mostly met with looks of disgust, especially from the girls. The final humiliation was when the girl who the Ravenclaw Seventh year _ex_ -prefect's family had expended a considerable amount of money and influence negotiating a betrothal with for him to elevate their house publicly stated that she would be demanding that her house break their betrothal because she would never consider marrying someone who behaved in such a disgusting manner!

His desperate argument that the girl was just a Half-Blood caused another outbreak of threats against them and his friends hit him for making things even worse for them. When they were sent back to their house tables, the wands pointed at them convinced them to go sit at the other end of the table, away from the other students.

* * *

Penny was one of the first of the nearly twenty students who were re-sorted, and she was surprised by the support she was receiving as she headed to sit with Harry and the others. It was obvious that she was the one Professor McGonagall was talking about because she'd arrived with the Head Boy, and while few had known that she was of a powerful house, everyone knew that she was a Half-Blood. Even those who held with the beliefs of blood status applauded her courage in facing down five older boys to protect her virtue though, so she was hearing encouragement all the way to the Hufflepuff table.

Some of the ones who asked to be resorted were upset when the hat initially selected the same house for them again, but they all had good cause to want to get out of the houses they were in so Myrddin capitulated and moved them to another house. Slytherin lost some of its brightest students that way, especially the girls, because even with the change of Headmaster and House Master, many of the older Slytherins had been too entrenched in the old mindset to change their ways. Minerva was upset to see that even leaving the Weasley boys out of it, Gryffindor had the next highest number of students determined to get away from the culture in their house. Thinking back to her own days as a Half-Blood witch in Gryffindor though, she could understand why some might want to leave.

By the end of the re-sorting, there were over a dozen extra Hufflepuff girls, so Hogwarts had the elves open extra bedchambers in the girls' dorms. Septima, Rolanda and Filius harshly stopped anyone moving to fill the holes left by the ones who had changed houses, telling them that they needed to think about _why_ their house mates had felt that they had no option other than to leave, so they would not be covering up their shame. They added that if there was any attempt to continue the behaviour which had pushed those house mates to do this with other members of the house, they _would_ be caught and they _would_ be punished! Pomona was the only House Mistress who hadn't lost any students in the re-sorting, but she told her house that the same thing applied to them, any behaviour of the nature of what had made those students ask to be resorted would be punished!

There were some Gryffindors who were stupid enough to complain that they'd not only lost their star seeker in Charlie Weasley, they'd also lost two of their chasers, one of whom had been the team's captain until Madam Hooch publicly stripped him of the position and banned him from the team because he was one of the five who had tried to attack Penny, but they were quickly shouted down by the rest of the house.

In fact all the quidditch teams lost key players and several more prefects were stripped of their badges, because other girls were emboldened by Penny's example and stood up to publicly accuse others who had attacked them or tried to force them to do things against their will. When they did, Filius and the other House Mistresses immediately imposed penalties on the guilty parties because everyone knew that memories of the attacks would be taken as evidence, so there could be no question of what happened. While Penny had managed to stop the ones who tried to do this to her, other girls hadn't been so lucky and sixteen students were expelled, seven of them being arrested by the DMLE and charged with criminal offences because they were of age, now at least. Three of the ones who had tried to attack Penny were among the ones expelled and two of them were charged, so they didn't escape justice. This was a frightening experience for the new First years, but Filius, Pomona, Septima and Rolanda sat down and explained to them how this was actually making it safer for them to be at Hogwarts, because the ones who did the wrong things were being outed and punished at last.

* * *

Just about everyone was drained by the time they finished what had to have been the most eventful Sorting Feast in known history at Hogwarts, but the older students who raced to get to the owlery before all the owls were claimed to get word off to their parents that Harry Potter was alive and at Hogwarts missed one important piece of news. Not even the ones who were from Hufflepuff found out that Harry and the others hadn't gone to the Hufflepuff dormitories until they returned, and by then it was too late, because it wasn't worth risking being caught out after curfew when there wasn't an owl left in Hogwarts.

While they had no more than two in each bedchamber in the Lords Tower and it was better secured than the rest of Hogwarts, Gringott and the others wanted more security for Harry especially, so they had almost impregnable trunks that used a host of expansion and other charms to create light and airy homes, complete with magical gardens, windows and ceilings inside them sitting in most of their bedchambers. After what she'd heard on the Hogwarts Express, Daphne wasn't surprised to find that it was Penny sharing the bedchamber and trunk with her rather than Luna. Both bedchambers in Hermione and Luna's trunk were empty anyway, because they'd both used the goblin floo in their trunk to join Harry in his bedchamber, for their own comfort as well as his because it had been a tumultuous night. So had Daphne for that matter, because she was closer to them than anyone else. They all knew that breakfast the next morning was going to be almost as chaotic as the Sorting Feast, but they were safe behind the wards of their trunks so they settled into a peaceful if exhausted sleep.

The cat was out of the bag as soon as the first students reached the Great Hall the next morning, because the elves had added a separate table at the rear of the hall for the people in the Lords Tower. The whispering about the ones in the back of the hall escalated when the schedules were handed out, because an extra third year class had been added, made up of Harry Potter and those other five new Huffpuffs who everyone had expected to be First years, plus Percy Weasley, Penny Clearwater and the top students who had come forward from Second year. The brighter ones in the Great Hall could easily see that this class would soon outstrip the rest of Third year, because even those who ridiculed the Weasleys as blood traitors couldn't argue that Bill, Charlie and Percy Weasley were among the best and brightest at Hogwarts. The more honest parents also admitted that Arthur Weasley, Branwen Greengrass, Pandora Lovegood and James and Lily Potter had all been brilliant when they were at Hogwarts and their children were expected to be just as bright.

One thing was obvious, this new group was determined to stand Hogwarts, and probably Magical Britain on its head, but the 'traditional' houses couldn't see any way to stop them.

* * *

There was quite a bit of complaining coming from the children of the so-called 'old' Pureblood families when they discovered that the Lords Tower had been reopened for children of the guiding families. These complaints only got worse when they discovered that, no matter how important they believed themselves to be, the only ones who qualified to move into the tower other than the children of the guiding families belonged to what they regarded to be lesser families that had been almost wiped out in the Wizarding war. The fact that most of the richest families in the traditional factions were Noble, rather than Noble and Ancient, Houses (and the _only_ Noble and Ancient House in the Pureblood factions with an Heir or Heiress at Hogwarts had already defected to the Council Alliance) was immaterial in their opinion, they were important so they should be in the Lords Tower.

This was yet another slap in the face for the traditional Pureblood Houses, Magical Britain had been firmly under their control since before the Wizarding War, but for the last year and a half, everything had been falling apart! Their families were losing influence, their businesses were losing money, that Bones creature was arresting their sons just for doing what they had all been doing for centuries, and now Hogwarts was expelling their sons and denying their children their rightful privileges, they would not put up with this!

The winds of change that started at Hogwarts had developed into a gale as they swept through Magical Britain. Pureblood wizards who complained that it was their right, or even worse, _any_ wizards of Pureblood families' right to do this were now finding that their previously malleable wives and daughters were suddenly standing up to them. These wizards were suddenly finding that they could and did get charged for forcing witches of lower blood status to give in to them, including the ones they were betrothed to because apparently the archaic laws which said that they could do as they wished with their wives didn't apply until they were actually wed. The fact that the witches betrothed to them had been told about this was yet another thing that they demanded retribution for.

Those fathers who traded their daughters for wealth and power with no care as to what fate awaited them didn't escape either, because while they could not actually be charged for doing this, they could be and were tried in the court of public opinion, paying with their reputations and losing hard won alliances and the support of those who weren't willing to be dragged down with them. Most of the houses who had been chasing alliances to gain their families' wealth or power were now pretending not to know them because any involvement in those deals to trade the daughters of wealthy or powerful houses for more wealth or power against their will would now mean having their own families' names dragged through the mud, and that wealth or power would be useless if no-one was willing to deal with them.

* * *

Minister Bagnold and others who tried to pressure the Daily Prophet into stopping its reports on these issues discovered something disturbing, that the guiding families now owned about three quarters of the Prophet so as long as they kept to reporting verifiable facts, there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. In fact the only noticeable outcome of Minister Bagnold's attempt to introduce a law to stop the Prophet reporting these things was a new series of articles about how the Ministry tried to and _had_ introduced laws purely to support its own agendas after the proposed law had been blocked in the Wizengamot. The fact that Xeno Lovegood was now the managing editor of the Prophet took a while longer to come out because he was a different wizard in that role, dead serious with a mind like a steel trap and he neither bent nor broke when anyone came at him, though the fact that he had a few of the Black Guard stationed in his office at all times may have helped with that part.

Knowing that they couldn't resist rising to the bait, Minerva issued an open offer in the Daily Prophet to parents of any Hogwarts students who believed that their children had been unfairly treated or denied their rights to provide detailed written submissions of what they believed to be unfair, promising to give fair and impartial consideration to their claims and address them if they were found to be justified. Bagnold saw the trap in this and tried to stop her factions responding, but many of the Pureblood fathers saw this as the bitch realising that she'd lost and backing down, so they jumped in, sending piles of parchment detailing the Noble House and Pureblood rights that she had ignored.

Apparently none of them had noticed that Minerva made no promise to respond privately, but then they should have realised that she'd be following up responses to the offer she'd made in the Prophet via the same media, shouldn't they?

Minerva handed everything she received over to Gringott, Ted, Amelia and the DMLE's law experts and they pulled it apart line by line. The inbred idiots had handed them a gold mine, they even provided enough detail to be accepted as confessions to many crimes when they were 'explaining' why this was just the Purebloods' right, and with the corroborating evidence from the Half-Blood, Muggleborn and Muggle victims who they managed to locate they were building an extensive charge list for quite a number of Purebloods.

The Purebloods' problem was that they had forgotten (if they ever really understood) that they had only ever gotten away with these practices because _other_ Purebloods had used exceedingly liberal interpretations of the laws to let them off. They couldn't comprehend that the fact that they'd been let off by their peers in the past didn't mean that they'd be let off by anyone who actually took their laws seriously. On top of that, there were units of Her Majesty's Government's in Demi-Britain who most definitely weren't going to let Wizards get away with crimes against non-magical Britons, and they had quite enough magic personnel and controls to hold them. The fact that it was Sirius' Black Guard who were grabbing wizards where they had sufficient evidence of their crimes and handing them over to the HMG units meant that Amelia could quite honestly say that she had no knowledge of the circumstances of the wizards' disappearances. Bagnold was suspicious but carefully worded oaths meant that what Amelia told her was still accepted at face value, because centuries of arrogance born of complete power meant that witches and wizards of Magical Britain didn't really understand subtle nuances.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it), none of the wizards who disappeared through Demi-Britain had been significant to the traditional factions, so there was no great furore about what happened to them. A little carefully doctored information about street violence in countries where weapons were more prevalent presented a credible argument that they must have gone Muggle-baiting or been caught trying to grab Muggle girls for a bit of fun in the wrong areas. It was common knowledge that most of these wizards weren't too bright (After all, how bright can you be to provide written evidence of your crimes, even if you believe the victims to be beneath your notice?) so the general consensus was that they must have gotten themselves killed doing something stupid. Most of these wizards just had their memories wiped and magic bound and were dumped in Muggle prisons, but the few who appeared likely to know anything useful were passed on to the goblins and HMG's intelligence units to extract everything they knew.

Once they'd rounded up and disposed of the low hanging fruit, Minerva's responses were published in the Daily Prophet, with the majority of the material coming from the DMLE and Wizengamot's legal experts. Minister Bagnold groaned when she read these responses in the paper, because while she knew that she was working with idiots, she hadn't realised the true scope of their idiocy. Her suspicions about the previous disappearances returned in force at that point, because there was no way that those idiots would have been able to resist a chance to strike back at any disrespect from those they believed that they were superior to (not that they could be called mentally superior to anything but a troll) and their monumental stupidity would have provided far more opportunities to humiliate them, but few of them had been mentioned in the early responses in the paper.

The Minister was a problem, because the stupidity of the ones who made up the majority of the factions that she was behind had made them underestimate her, but the fact was that she had no proof to support her suspicions so all she could really do was keep an eye on them to try and get that proof.

* * *

While all of this was going on, Harry and the others were settling into Hogwarts. Neither Minerva or the other professors were surprised to hear that the new students were disappointed about what they were learning there, because even with the special class that had been created for them they were held back a little by Percy and the other students who were used to working within the normal class structure of Hogwarts.

The point of bringing them to Hogwarts was more to socialise them with the children of their generation in Magical Britain though, because they were the ones they'd be dealing with when they grew up. To this end, the handful of other students at Hogwarts who did qualify to move into the Lords Tower because they were the Heads or Heirs of Noble and Ancient Houses (There wouldn't be any Heads or Heirs of 'traditional' Noble and Most Ancient Houses at Hogwarts for another decade unless the current Head or Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan died, and they didn't see Lord Macmillan's grandson Earnest starting early as by all reports he was no great shakes in either intelligence or magical ability.) were moved in as soon as it was confirmed that the requirements were met.

Having the other residents of the Lords Tower and the guests they escorted into the Tower's common room and their chambers reporting that it wasn't that much different from the House dormitories except for the training facilities in the tower had the effect of reducing most of the other students' complaints, because aside from the Ravenclaws most at Hogwarts didn't see the ability to do more training and study in their tower as a good thing. Having to escort their guests at all times inside the tower and accept responsibility for anything they did, and on top of that being under the watchful eye of the Black Guard whenever they were anywhere near Harry and the core group with him tended to limit guests' visits, as did the fact that things were much more friendly and relaxed when only the residents were there. This helped them get all of the other Tower residents' houses into the Wizards Council Alliance, because most of them had lost family in the Wizarding War too, giving them common experiences and views to bond over.

The jealous looks at the Lords Table in the Great Hall continued, but most of the student body had stopped listening to the whining from the children of the Pureblood Noble Houses about how they should be there. The fact that the Heads and Heirs of the more powerful Noble and Most Ancient Houses represented at the Lords Table didn't push their status down people's throats anywhere near as much as those Noble Houses' children was quickly swaying public opinion in the Most Ancient Houses' favour, because the other students at Hogwarts were reporting home to their parents about most of the incidents and complaints there.

In fact, once Dumbledore's illegal law prohibiting students starting at Hogwarts when they were supposed to was abolished and most people accepted that what they were doing was a more sensible approach and the furore over the fact that Harry Potter was alive had died down and the reasons he had been in hiding for nearly two years were accepted, most of the reports about him were what a nice boy he was, and how he only ever used his status when someone tried to push him or the ones closest to him around. The reports of those incidents generally delighted in telling how he'd come back at the older sons or daughters of Noble Houses and put them down harder than most would have thought possible for an eight year old, even if it was Harry Potter. The stories about how brilliant he was with a strong sense of justice and how his best friend was even more so made many people laugh and say that there could be no question that he was James and Lily Potter's son, as he had all of their qualities and found the most brilliant witch of the age with a fiery passion for justice to stand by him.

* * *

The family was furious about the fact that most of the people of Magical Britain couldn't understand why Harry was getting upset about all the plans that were being made for big celebrations on Halloween in honour of the return of the Boy-Who-Lived, even after they were reminded about just what Halloween meant to him. Minister Bagnold was planning on using the Boy-Who-Lived's popularity to bolster her own flagging reputation and wouldn't be deterred from putting on a gala event to celebrate his return, where she would be awarding him the Order of Merlin, First Class, for vanquishing Lord Voldemort. It was only a week before the event that they finally managed to convince her that Harry would refuse to accept any award unless his parents were awarded at least the same, so she hastily arranged a posthumous award of the Order of Merlin, First Class, to Lord James and Lady Lily Potter for their part in Lord Voldemort's downfall.

Bagnold was ready to explode at the award ceremony though, because the Potter brat had ruined her! He'd accepted the awards graciously enough (well more grudgingly than graciously for his own), but then he had the gall to demand to know why that Death Eater traitor Peter Pettigrew who betrayed his parents to their deaths was awarded an Order of Merlin posthumously right after he was supposedly killed by his Godfather, but his parents who had been killed by Voldemort _himself_ trying to protect him would have received _nothing_ if he hadn't refused to accept an award that he hadn't done anything to deserve unless they received what they were due. She was caught flat footed by that because while she had written a rousing speech about the Potters' noble sacrifice and the nation's gratitude for his efforts in vanquishing Lord Voldemort, she couldn't use that now and she had absolutely nothing prepared to answer the charges that everyone in Magical Britain could immediately see were quite valid.… Indeed! Why had that traitor been awarded an Order of Merlin and applauded for his courage _immediately_ for doing nothing when the Potters who were killed by Voldemort for trying to protect their son from him were forgotten?

Then, while she stood there, open mouthed as she tried to formulate a response, the brat had gone even further, railing at everyone for expecting him to join them in _celebrating_ the night that his Mummy and Daddy had been killed by Voldemort. Celebrating the fact that he had been sentenced to hard labour and torment and his Godfather was sent to _Azkaban_ without a trial for over five years by the great _Leader of the Light_ , and _no-one_ did a thing to stop the old man or try and rescue him! An eight year old should not be able to project the presence that that brat did, but he stood there with his green eyes glowing as if they were about to start sending Avada Kedavras into the crowd and had everyone transfixed, unable to say a word for the shame they were feeling, but they had soon enough found someone to turn their self loathing on, _her_! The angry questions and demands being thrown at her from the crowd were the death knell of her political career, all her hopes and plans to get past this current mess and be seen leading Magical Britain into a new golden age were shredded then and there.

She couldn't even take off straight away because if she just cut and ran that Bones bitch would investigate her, and she was fairly sure that Bones was even more competent than she looked. No, she'd have to play this very carefully, wait until the Ministry's Yule Ball and then publicly tender her resignation, announcing that she had done a considerable amount of soul searching since the revelations of Halloween and had realised that she had indeed failed Lord Potter and Heir Black when she unquestioningly trusted Chief Warlock Dumbledore's honesty and integrity in the events following that fateful Halloween seven years ago. She'd concede contritely that while they had _all_ made the error of believing the Chief Warlock to be beyond reproach, in her position as the Minister _for_ Magic (had to be careful about that, because the real old Noble families were particular about proper titles) she had a greater duty of care than ordinary citizens of Magical Britain, but she had failed in that due to her horror at what had happened to the Potters. Having come to face that, she had decided that she must do the right thing and tender her resignation.

Yes, that should be enough to make it look as though she was falling on her sword in an act of contrition instead of taking whatever money she could get her hands on and running before she could be dragged down with the rest of those idiots, because she didn't think that there was any question that whoever it was pulling the Potter brat's strings was going to destroy their opposition. She wished she had more money to take with her, but was sure that she'd made the right decision to keep her hands off the Hogwarts funding after she heard that the Wizards Council Alliance had total control of the Hogwarts Board, as they would have surely gone looking for the money and it was a fair bet that they would have found it.


	8. Anchors, Death Eaters and Ministers

**Sorry, I got my timeline muddled in the last chapter, so I had to go back and remove any mention of marked Death Eaters after Harry and the others started at Hogwarts, because they were eliminated in the previous year.**

 **Warning: Amos Diggory is cast in a _very_ bad light in this chapter, and it gets rather nasty in a few spots a bit past three quarters of the way through.**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.****

Dora and Bill had decided to go to Luna first to ask about her predictions on the Hogwarts Express, and it turned out that Charlie was already friends of a sort with Penny. He had been kind to the quiet Second year Gryffindor the previous year, talking to her when she was upset, protecting her against the blood bigots' bullying and showing her how to look after herself. He'd also gotten her away from Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain when he was trying to convince her that her chances of making the team would be greatly improved by some private 'coaching' from him when she tried out for the team just after she turned thirteen (something the bastard obviously hadn't forgotten about, given the way he'd gone after her again on the Hogwarts Express).

Basically, what it came down to was that while Charlie liked Hestia, he didn't really do much with her outside of maintaining their pretend relationship and he had a lot more in common with Penny than he did with her. On the other hand, Hestia had spent a lot of time studying and hanging out with with Bill and Dora, both at Hogwarts and at the Potter Estate, over the last year and a bit because Dora was her closest friend and she fitted in with them quite well. From what Luna _saw_ , Hestia didn't have type of the attachment with Charlie that Dora had with Bill, but she'd felt a little as though she was being set aside by Charlie as he grew closer to Penny after she joined the group, and she bonded more with Bill and Dora when they comforted her over that. While telling them almost made this a self fulfilling prophecy, it sat comfortably with both of them and knowing allowed Dora to accept and embrace it, so when it happened, it all went smoothly and they became a happy threesome.

Charlie was quite apologetic when he realised what he'd done, but the fact that they all understood and accepted what was happening allowed Hestia to maintain a close relationship with Charlie and become close to Penny, so everyone was happy. The other girl who Luna had prophesied that Charlie would be with was a bigger surprise, because this was Lady Cecilia Selwyn, Heiress to the titles of Baroness Selwyn and head of the Noble and Ancient House of Selwyn. The surprise was that she was the one who had so publicly ended her betrothal to the Ravenclaw ex-prefect who was in the group that tried to attack Penny. As the Heiress to a Noble and Ancient House, Cecilia qualified to be in the Lords Tower and she was one of the first to move in outside of the original group.

The six oldest of their generation were quite close, and most of the ten youngest were even closer. Percy in between and Ginny and Draco with the group at Potter Manor were still working to fit in, but they were included as part of the family in everything and they were getting there. They also looked into the other three girls Luna mentioned in her prediction, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell, and started taking measures to bring their families into the fold so that they would get the benefits of being part of the group, and to ensure that Katie started next year with the others.

* * *

At least they'd managed to get rid of the rest of those abominations that Riddle had created in an attempt to anchor what he had for a soul to the realm of the living. The goblins had seen this before through their centuries of breaking down the defences of ancient tombs for wizards who wanted to rob them (unless they located them before the wizards of course). Vainglorious wizards or witches who were so desperate to ensure that they returned to enjoy the riches that they had accumulated by whatever means that they used dark rituals to anchor parts of their souls to this realm. That was why, when they removed the abomination contained in the scar on Harry's forehead, they immediately recognised what it was, a small fragment of the 'soul' of Tom Riddle, the one the humans called Lord Voldemort.

Their biggest worry was the size of the fragment they removed from Harry, because they knew the process used to create these anchors split the wizard's 'soul', 'core' or whatever they wanted to call it in two so that one half could be attached to the anchor. This meant that for the fragment from Harry to be so small, Riddle must have performed this ritual a number of times, especially as they had torn memories from Death Eaters' heads in the war which showed Riddle performing other dark rituals to steal witches and wizards' power to increase his own, not to mention using his Death Eater slaves' dark marks to leach power from them.

The way to discover just how many of these anchors were out there didn't show until Dumbledore was arrested and Harry called his missing heirlooms to him, because when the Peverell family ring that the Gaunts had had and Salazar Slytherin's mother's locket came to him, it was obvious that they both had the same taint as what had been removed from Harry, and Godric Gryffindor's Armlet showed signs of being prepared for something like the horcrux ritual as well. This must have been meant to receive the soul fragment the night Harry's parents died, seeing as Harry was supposed to die and the spells to begin its preparation for the task were cast around then. They had the others call for their houses' missing heirlooms to be returned as well and Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem and Helga Hufflepuff's Cup both showed Riddle's taint too. This meant that they now had five pieces of Riddle's 'soul', the first in the Peverell ring, and the last from Harry's scar going by the 'size' and age of the fragments, but that just presented another problem, because the fragment in the ring wasn't anywhere near big enough to be half of Riddle's soul, so there must be another one out there, the first one.

It was actually Narcissa who pointed them to where the primary anchor was. They were discussing the fact that the primary anchor was probably with one of his trusted followers, but it apparently wasn't an heirloom of one of their houses (it would have been stupid as well as cruel to exclude her from the discussion, seeing as she was around Riddle and his followers before he was destroyed). Narcissa had been there when the Peverell ring came to Harry and had cringed away from the foul feel of it like everyone else, but that had triggered a memory and she turned to the goblins. "Could this anchor be a diary?"

That had their attention, so the goblins said yes and asked what she was talking about. "When he was trying to convince himself that his Master would return, and everyone else how important he was to the Master, Lucius was waving an old diary about, saying that the Dark Lord told him to keep it safe because it may be needed to ensure his return. I remember it now because it had the same foul aura as those heirlooms, only stronger. Come to think of it, Bella said that the Master left something with her as well, but _she_ was doing as she was told, not waving it about and showing it off. This was at a meeting of the inner circle Death Eaters in the chamber hidden under the parlour at Malfoy Manor just before Bella and the others went after the Longbottoms…." She turned to Frank and Alice. "I didn't know about that, I swear! I was only down there to hear the other because Lucius made me come serve them to show them how much I was under his control, and probably to show me how powerful he was among the Death Eaters, he sent me away again straight after that."

They debated the matter and agreed that this diary may well be the primary anchor, so they asked where she thought it would be now. "I'm certain it would still be in that chamber at Malfoy Manor. Lucius is almost as sure of his own infallibility as Riddle or Dumbledore, so he wouldn't believe that anyone could get through the wards and traps he put on the chamber, and he probably thinks that everyone would have forgotten about it by now because we don't have his great mind. The fact that he's too paranoid to try and get something like that through the wards at Gringotts means that it will be at the Manor and that chamber is the most secure place at the manor, so it will be there, I'm sure of it!"

That was good enough for them, so they asked to see her memories of the chamber and both Amelia and the goblins were furious because there were many obvious forbidden dark objects in there, and many of them were created from goblin artefacts. While they wanted to swoop in there and clear everything out of that chamber, they knew that a blatant move like that would make Bagnold and the others band together to support Malfoy, because they'd be worried whether they'd be next if they allowed them to go after him. This created a problem, because while they knew that Malfoy's controls wouldn't be as strong as he believed, they'd still need curse breakers to get past them to get the diary, and that would both make it obvious that Narcissa had told about the chamber _and_ let the Death Eaters know that they were going after something in the chamber. Unfortunately one of them was bound to remember about the diary if they publicly broke into the chamber. Saul was musing out loud. "No, what we need is a way to get into that chamber without Malfoy knowing. The only thing I can think of is tunnelling in from underneath but even that's dangerous if anyone thought to put wards underneath, or the perimeter wards go deep enough to catch the attempt to tunnel into the Manor…."

That was when they were reminded again of the brilliance of these children, because a small voice piped up. "What about the elves? They can go anywhere can't they?"

Gringott bellowed a laugh and kissed Hermione on the head. Amelia just shook her head, but she kissed her too. It was so simple when the children pointed out things like that. There was no way that Malfoy would have bothered to ward against anything so insignificant as a house elf, and the fact that the chamber was clean in Narcissa's memories said that the elves must go down there to clean it. Narcissa's personal elf had been at Malfoy Manor up until Narcissa left (Dobby had been given to her when she went to Hogwarts, so he wasn't reclaimed with her dowry when her Great Uncle annulled her marriage the first time), so they called him to ask whether he'd been in the secret chamber under the parlour.

"Oh yes, we has to keeps it clean or the Master get angry!"

Dobby was a bit of a strange elf, so Narcissa took over the questioning. "Dobby, how did you get into the chamber to clean it, did Lucius open it to let you in?"

He looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "No Mistress, the Master only opens the chamber when he wants to go in, we pops in to clean it."

The humans and goblins looked at each other, wondering whether it could really be this simple. "Do you know whether anything has been done to block you from any part of Malfoy Manor since we left there Dobby, or can you still get in the way you did before? We need to get something from that chamber Dobby, an old diary that was being kept in there. You'll know the one I'm talking about because it feels bad."

She should have known better than to ask him like that, because he immediately nodded and disappeared. He reappeared a couple of minutes later, dropping the diary on the floor and scuttling back from it, wrapping his arms around himself and shivering as he said. "That bad thing! Many bad things in chamber but that worst!"

Narcissa fell to her knees and hugged him, she hadn't meant to send him in there like that. The best idea would have been to have him take a container with him and levitate the diary into it so that he didn't have to touch it, but Dobby was even more eager to please than most elves.

They didn't really need any confirmation because they all felt the foul presence of the thing as soon as it appeared in the room, but the Head Curse Breaker waved his hand over it and nodded grimly, this was _definitely_ the primary anchor! He quickly conjured a container and levitated the diary into it, sealing it in straight away to contain that foul presence.

Now that they had all six of the anchors Riddle had created though, the question was what to do with them, and what to do about the Riddle's shade, which was his seventh and final soul fragment. For that matter, they wanted to do something about the remaining Death Eaters, but the tool that Riddle had left them to do that would require his magical signature to activate it.

* * *

Unfortunately, they needed Harry to go into Riddle's memories to determine how he used the Death Eaters' dark marks to take magic from them. The goblins had determined during the war that he had been constantly drawing off the Death Eaters' magical energy to boost his own, but it was at such a low level that most wouldn't have noticed. Riddle being Riddle, they were certain that he would have built the capability to take as much as he wanted of their magic when he felt he had a need for it into the spells of the dark mark, especially after he created the first of the soul anchors and worked out that he lost half of his magic each time he did so. That was what they were looking for now, the way to activate this capability and suck out _all_ the Death Eaters' magic.

The Purebloods in the Wizengamot would never allow prominent Purebloods to be executed unless there was irrefutable proof of them committing acts that even they couldn't stomach, not even Death Eaters, their core belief in Pureblood sovereignty was too deeply engrained for that. Bagnold and her factions were bound to spread rumours about this being a plot to wipe out the Purebloods of Magical Britain and they would be accepted at face value because critical thinking wasn't something that had ever taken on in Magical Britain apparently.

Putting the Death Eaters into Azkaban wouldn't be enough to stop them being a threat either, because the mindset that allowed them to commit the atrocities they did with wild abandon meant that the dementors didn't effect them as much as normal people. This meant that if Riddle _did_ manage to return, he would have a ready made army waiting for him in Azkaban, and for matter half of the staff there were likely to join him because it took a similar mindset to the Death Eaters' to handle working around the dementors for any length of time. Yes, the Death Eaters would be less than they were before they went in, but Riddle would just sacrifice the ones who couldn't do what he wanted them to, probably using their sacrifices to motivate the others to improve or else.

No, the only way to ensure that the Death Eaters couldn't rise again would be to wipe them out. Doing this by any normal means would most likely have the majority of the Purebloods banding together to fight back though, probably under Bagnold's banner, so they needed to find another way, and using their own dark marks to drain them seemed the safest and most effective. After all, if they were all found dead, drained and clutching their dark marks, hopefully even the Purebloods would surmise that Voldemort's own methods had been used to take the Death Eaters' magic, which would in turn imply that either he was trying to return or someone in his inner circle was trying to take out the competition. With any luck, _that_ would frighten enough of the Purebloods to get measures against the Death Eaters approved to stop them taking over, especially if they used the Daily Prophet to point out that the time to stop them was now, before they grew strong enough to terrorise Magical Britain again.

* * *

The goblins and the Unspeakables all agreed that the stronger Ridddle's presence was in the soul fragment that was used as the focus to call for the Death Eaters' magic, the faster they would be drained, so after much debate they agreed to combine the fragments extracted from everything but the diary into one container so that it would have almost half of his 'soul', and use that as the focus for the ritual. They tried to use this container to locate Riddle's shade (because the mechanisms they used to locate tombs via the soul anchors stored in them were more effective with stronger soul fragments too), but the most they could determine was that it was somewhere outside of the British Isles, perhaps in Eastern Europe. Harry reminded them that the last place that Riddle had successfully created a soul anchor was in Albania, when he found Rowena's Diadem, so he might have been dragged back there by his magic when his attempt to create another one in their cottage failed. The others agreed that that made more sense than anything else they could think of.

Once enough goblin warding experts and curse breakers had been assembled to ensure that they would be able to contain the soul and enact the ritual of banishment, they initiated the ritual to drain the Death Eaters' magic through their dark marks. This was done during a full Wizengamot session so that the most prominent of the marked Death Eaters were on display while they were being drained. It was quite impressive, as the Death Eaters all screamed and fell to the floor, clutching at their dark marks. The same thing happened all over Magical Britain, including Azkaban, everyone with Riddle's dark mark was struck, but the further they were from Gringotts, the longer it took for the process to start.

The goblins had added the locator spell to the ones that drew the magic through the dark marks, and they noted that the closer to Gringotts the Death Eaters were, the faster they showed up and the faster they were drained. The ones doing their banking and shopping in Diagon Alley were quickly sucked dry and died first, then the Ministry building and St Mungo's in London, the estates in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and finally Azkaban. As they died, their locator threads disappeared and the goblins working to identify who they were pointing to moved on to the next threads.

As the 'soul' they were using as the focus fed on the magic it was drawing into itself to grow bigger and stronger, it reached out further. At the start, the magic could only reach the ones in London, but as they were drained, it reached out to locate and latch onto other dark marks further away. They soon had confirmation of the Death Eaters dying in Gringotts' banking chamber and Diagon Alley, and word came in of the deaths in the Ministry building and St Mungo's too. Within half an hour, the only Death Eaters left alive in the British Isles were the ones in Azkaban, but they seemed to be lasting longer than expected.

On a hunch, Gringott sent Balrog and Gamling to the prison and they found what he had expected, that the reason the Death Eaters were lasting longer there was that the dementors had flocked to feed on them when they suddenly became vulnerable. When the dementors tried to feed on them though, the spells which were draining the Death Eaters had actually reversed the process and they were drawing magical energy _from_ the dementors. This was too good an opportunity to pass up, so Balrog and Gamling did as their uncle had ordered and quickly broke open the doors of all the Death Eaters' cells to let the dementors reach them.

Watching the memories Balrog and Gamling brought back of almost the entire dementor population of Azkaban packed into the Death Eaters' cells in a feeding frenzy, trying to get at the Death Eaters and any other dementors which had started to flag (because that was how they sustained themselves when they couldn't feed on humans, they attacked weaker dementors) was rather disturbing, but most of them shared the goblins' grim satisfaction at what was achieved to some degree.

About half an hour after the magic latched onto the first of the Death Eaters' dark marks in Azkaban, they were all gone, as were the vast majority of Azkaban's dementors. Any thoughts the Ministry may have had about trying to see whether any of the dementors could be recovered were dashed by the fact that no-one would go anywhere near them because as soon as they died, they had immediately began to rapidly decompose and the overpowering reek from nearly three hundred decomposing dementor husks soon emptied the prison.

Amelia was fairly certain that the guards hadn't made much of an attempt to get the last of the living prisoners out of the high security section before they sealed it up and scoured it out with Fiendfyre because they were too afraid that there may be more dementors in there looking for someone to feed on, but she wasn't at all bothered about the fact that the few remaining dementors which had stayed in their containment area beneath the prison were also burnt out by the Fiendfyre. Between the fact that the dementors had burst out of their containment area and fed on the guards when the feeding frenzy began and the Fiendfyre half melting everything in there, they were fairly confident that no-one would question the story that the dementors had broken into the Death Eaters' cells when the feeding frenzy started. After all, no-one had ever studied dementors in a feeding frenzy so there was no conclusive evidence that they _couldn't_ do that.

As soon as the last of the Death Easters died and the locator threads disappeared, the goblins drained the magical energy from the 'soul' into ward stones that they had waiting and then banished it, because after feeding on all those Death Eaters and the dementors, it had grown to several times its original size and they were having considerable trouble containing it. All in all, they considered the exercise quite a success though. They still had the soul fragment from the diary which would allow them to track down Riddle's shade if they wished, but they had eliminated all of his Death Eaters in the British Isles, the fact that they'd eliminated the vast majority of the dementors as well being an unexpected bonus. According to DMLE and the goblins' records, the only known marked Death Eater on the Continent was Igor Karkaroff and they had a lead that he was teaching at Durmstrang. The goblins had no problem with eliminating him to ensure that he couldn't be used to help restore Riddle's shade, and in fact they were already organising it.

The only argument was about the amount of time and effort it would take to track down and identify whatever animal Riddle was currently possessing in the forests of Albania and banish his shade. Some were arguing that they should just wait until he tried to return to Magical Britain and finish him off then, but others were pointing out that that could give him a chance to find a way to restore himself, not to mention the added risk of having to keep the larger soul fragment from the diary to locate the last piece with. Eventually they compromised, using the soul locator to narrow it down to the glade that the shade or possessed animal was in and burning out the entire glade with the goblin version of Fiendfyre. According to the locator, the soul fragment had pretty much stayed in one place until disappeared when the fire was released and there was no sign of it afterwards, so they took the diary's soul fragment back to Gringotts London and destroyed it. With the last piece of Riddle and all the Death Eaters in Britain at least gone, the family allowed itself to relax a little.

* * *

With Lucius dead and the House of Malfoy eradicated, Draco went back to the name of Rosier again (his mother's maiden name), because Lord Black wasn't prepared to have him in the line of succession for the House of Black. While he was living with his mother at the London Townhouse and being trained at Potter Manor with Harry and the others though, Draco was initially too arrogant and lazy to make the effort needed to catch up so they thought he would probably be starting two or three years after them, but the humiliation of being left behind by the younger girls made him start working. They still had doubts, because he wasn't anywhere near as bright as their brilliant girls, or a match for Neville or Sue either for that matter, but they left it up to him as to whether he was going to make the effort to try and start with Neville and the others, and Narcissa reminded him that if he _didn't_ keep up that effort when they got to Hogwarts he would be left behind.

In Magical Britain, Minister Bagnold and most of the 'dark' houses had really started panicking by then, because all the goblins would tell them was that the houses of all the Death Eaters and everything they owned had been successfully claimed by right of conquest. This gutted the dark houses' power base, and took a rather large bite out of the Pureblood Houses' overall power too. They had lost sixteen houses and nine noble titles (two of them Earls) when the Death Eaters' houses were claimed by right of conquest, and they were sure that the other side had gained even more votes by allocating those titles to Most Ancient, or at least Ancient Houses because while the Wizards Council representatives in the Wizengamot weren't saying anything, they looked quite satisfied and their votes obviously had more effect than they did before.

By the time Harry and the others went to Hogwarts, the balance of power had swung well and truly to the Council, so with the scandals of the the sons of her strongest supporters being expelled and arrested, and even worse their Heads of House disappearing or being arrested, Minister Bagnold was getting desperate. This was what drove her to ignore the advice of anyone who knew Harry in her attempt to hitch her wagon to Harry's star with the Halloween celebration and Order of Merlin award. While brighter than most Pureblood witches and wizards, Minister Bagnold still couldn't accept that the way everything had blown up in her face was her own fault, so while she was planning on retiring before she could be thrown out, she decided that she'd still be the force behind her Wizengamot factions and would be watching the Wizards Council Alliance like a hawk, waiting for a chance to get back at the ones she saw as being responsible for her downfall.

Of course, with typical Pureblood short sightedness, she couldn't see that the Wizards Council Alliance was only one part of what she was up against. Even leaving the elves out of the equation, she had the Goblin Nation of Britain, Her Majesty's Government and everyone else who was part of Demi-Britain _and_ the International Confederation of Wizards (because they were worried about the potential fallout of the traditional Purebloods of Magical Britain's arrogance exposing their world) opposing her. Poor Millicent, she didn't have a chance…. Or a clue for that matter.

* * *

By Halloween, Harry and the others had settled into Hogwarts, they still weren't too impressed with the way they were being taught there but they were working with it, helping Percy, Penny and the others in their class move ahead much faster than they had before so they quickly left the rest of the Third years behind. Their interactions with students from all four houses was helping break down the barriers between the houses as well, and the Lords group got on quite well with most of the school (except the sons and daughters of the powerful Pureblood houses who saw them as taking away everything that was rightfully their's).

That was why Harry had received quite a bit of support from his schoolmates and most of their families at the Halloween Feast when the Minister's plans blew up in her face, because many of his schoolmates had come to accept and like this quiet little boy for who and what he was, not the ridiculous stories that were being told about him for the last seven years. They had also been telling their parents about the real Harry Potter and the altercations he was having with the children of the Pureblood families, so most of them were better disposed to him as well. That was why their anger at being attacked over their lack of consideration and support had so quickly turned to sorrow, because they could see that he was right, they _had_ failed both him and Sirius Black terribly. Of course, human nature led them to redirect their ire onto someone else, but not many felt guilt over doing this to the Minister, because she _was_ one of the ones directly responsible for what happened to them.

After Halloween, many Houses had their children approach Harry at Hogwarts to offer their apologies for allowing this to happen to him, and their fathers apologised to Sirius as well. Many of these apologies led in turn to discussions which had quite a few houses aligning themselves with and joining the Wizards Council Alliance.

* * *

Only about a third of the seven hundred and fifty or so houses still recognised in Magical Britain were currently extant. About a hundred of these were Minor Houses which had been created by rich common families buying a Baronet or similar to give them higher status since the Wizengamot had been created. Another sixty odd houses had been ennobled since the Wizengamot was created, ten or fifteen legitimately, the rest by nefarious means, these were the Noble Houses which made up the core of the Pureblood factions. The last ninety or so Houses were the Most Ancient and Ancient Noble and Druid Houses which had been recognised before the Wizengamot was created. The majority of the Most Ancient and Ancient Houses had begun as Druid Houses, the families of Druids recognised for their wisdom and magical power, and most of these had been part of the guiding families that made up the Druids Council and Wizards Council at some point in the one and a half thousand years that they guided Magical Britain.

The Wizengamot had come out of the ambition and hunger for power of rising wizards who used their powers to get titles from the British rulers and then used their noble status to lord it over others. These were the houses that the 'traditional' Purebloods came from, and with their wits addled by six or seven hundred years of inbreeding, they believed that it was their absolute right to rule over Magical Britain, so they weren't about to give up control without a fight.

* * *

While Millicent was resigned to retiring before she could be kicked out, she wasn't ready to give up control, so she gave careful consideration to the matter of her successor. She dismissed Delores Umbridge from consideration immediately, the woman's rat cunning and total lack of scruples or morals were very useful attributes, indeed, that was why she was the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, but she was incapable of covering up these attributes so just about everyone loathed her. If she somehow managed to get voted in as Minister she'd be voted out again within six months, but quite aside from that she needed Delores to stay in the Undersecretary's position to guide her replacement, or sabotage them if the wrong person got in. Ministry tradition was that the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister remained in that position for at least a year to maintain continuity and ease the transition between Ministers, this meant that she could use Delores to control what was happening in the Ministry for long enough to ensure that things went the way she wanted.

No, Delores was out, but who would do? Lord Abbot would be accepted by the people of Magical Britain and he supported the Pureblood beliefs, but he wasn't part of the Ministry and unfortunately tradition _also_ required the Minister to have come from the Ministry. Fudge wasn't a viable option either, he had a good dose of Delores' rat cunning and ambition but he was an idiot…. Hmmm, he could still be useful though, promoting _him_ as an exemplary senior Ministry official might help keep attention off her real choice. That would hopefully give those Council people less of a chance to dig up the dirt on the one she ended up putting forward. It was a given that there _would_ be dirt to be found because she couldn't think of anyone of any real importance in her factions who was truly clean….

Elphias Doge might have been a candidate, if not for the fact that he was a doddering old fool who had been Dumbledore's lap dog for more than a century so the stench of failure by association clung to him, and everyone knew that he was largely, if not completely ineffectual.

She frowned as she came to the conclusion that Amos Diggory was the only viable candidate she had to put forward. He was far from ideal, while not an idiot like Fudge he didn't have Delores' cunning, but then that should make him easier to control via Delores, so it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He had enough seniority and experience in the Ministry to make him a credible candidate, and the fact that he hadn't insulted the goblins enough to make them kill him yet said that he _could_ hold his tongue when he needed to, not that she'd ever seen it. He was more presentable than Fudge, and his Great, Great or even Great, Great, Great Grandfather had bought the Baronet to make the Diggory family a Minor House, so they were _almost_ Noble.

She snorted in a most unladylike manner at this last, as dealing with the smug superiority of their factions' nobles was one of her biggest bugbears, but being from such an _established_ Minor House would hopefully make Amos more acceptable to them than someone like her or Fudge who'd bought their titles themselves. Malfoy wasn't the only one who had been always ready to demand satisfaction for the slight of failing to address them as _Lord,_ not by a long shot, and the newer the title, the touchier they seemed to be.

Yes, as limited as he was, Diggory would have to be her factions' candidate for the next Minister. At least she didn't have to worry about the dark houses splitting the vote with their own candidate now, because losing the Death Eaters with all their wealth and votes last year had brought the dark houses to their knees so they had finally learned to shut up and do as they were told. She _would_ have to cover up how he'd killed those Muggles in a panic when he was caught Muggle baiting in his youth, trying to impress future Death Eaters like Malfoy and Nott, and he may well have some Half-Blood bastards running around somewhere from the times he'd been having fun with Muggle bints, maybe even at Hogwarts. She snorted again at the thought that his beloved _Cedric_ might be at Hogwarts with half brothers and half sisters that he didn't know about….. But as far as they knew the Muggles had all been obliviated and that and the money he took for bribing those goblins to grant illegal access to wizards' vaults were the only real skeletons in his closet, which made him a lot cleaner than most of their people.

The goblins were the biggest worry, because the ones he'd bribed that time had apparently been caught and executed for betraying the Goblin Nation, so they may know about Diggory's part in that, but the old houses assured her that the goblins didn't talk to humans unless they absolutely had to, and as Diggory was the current Goblin Liaison, they didn't have anyone else to tell tales to anyway. If they tried to stir up trouble once he was Minister…. Well amending the terms of the treaty so it cost them money should be a good deterrent, and if not, threats of much harsher measures if they didn't do as they were told should get the message across, she'd been waiting for the excuse to put those creatures in their place ever since she became Minister anyway.

* * *

Unfortunately for Millicent, the people she was up against, both human and goblin, were far brighter and more observant than she gave them credit for, so they immediately caught onto what she was doing when she started pulling back from the public eye and Cornelius Fudge's 'achievements' began being touted. They knew quite well what Fudge was like, so there was no way they'd accept him as a viable candidate to replace her unless it was as a puppet with Bagnold's hand up his jacksie to control his every move. So they stepped back and watched to see who else was being praised, and soon enough Amos Diggory's name started showing up.

Gringott told them about the goblins who had been executed because they accepted bribes from Diggory to give wizards illegal access to others' vaults in Gringotts, and they smiled when they saw the names of the holders of some of those vaults, because they were among the richest houses of the Pureblood factions. Rich wizards tended to be like the dragons of legend, they guarded their gold _very_ closely, so hearing that their faction's candidate for Minister had played a key role in thefts from their vaults would almost guarantee that he wouldn't get their votes, or anyone beholden to them's either.

 _ **Unpleasant things pop up from here on.**_

Alastor also had news about Diggory, because he had kept records of anything and everything which might be important since he first became an Auror, and he remembered a number of incidents involving young Amos Diggory that Magical Accidents had had to be called in to cover up around the start of the war. As the Director of the DMLE, Amelia had no trouble getting the records out of the archives and with Alastor's help ensured that the records clerks were too scared to say a word to anyone about it.

They were sickened to read what Amos the Lad had gotten up to, and when the information was shared with the HMG units they worked with, they demanded that he handed over to them for murder and multiple cases of rape, especially the rape of minors. Her Majesty's representatives agreed to hold off until they had used this to destroy Bagnold's nomination for her replacement, but only _after_ they were given the guarantee that they _would_ get him.

Interfering with Muggles wasn't something that most wizards cared about, especially the traditional Purebloods, but Minister Bagnold wasn't the only one clever enough to think about the possibility of Half-Blood children resulting from his raping Muggle girls so they started investigating. They soon discovered that there had been a few pregnancies resulting from those rapes, and at least one of them was indeed a Half-Blood wizard, a Seventh year Gryffindor by the name of Henry Jones who's mother had only been twelve when she had him. Henry agreed to do whatever they wanted when they contacted him and offered him a chance to help bring down the wizard who was responsible for his mother's death.

She had been on her on the way home from school when she was snatched and viciously raped in a back lane, to be left all but naked and bleeding to death from the damage that had been done to her. Someone had found her just in time to get help to save her, but she had no memory of the rape, and neither did anyone else. Having a baby at twelve destroyed sweet little Helen Jones' life, because while her parents stood by her and just about everyone knew that she was a good girl who was in no way to blame for what had been done to her, the vicious taunts and rumours thrown at her and the boys and men who wanted some of what they said she was obviously ready and willing to give up were too much for her to bear, so she threw herself into the river and drowned herself soon after she turned thirteen to escape it.

Henry was raised by his Grandparents after she died, but he grew up an angry young man because of what they and everyone else told him about her. When Minerva came to their flat to explain to them that Henry was a wizard and offer him a place at Hogwarts, he finally found somewhere to focus that anger. There had been too many unexplainable things about the day his mother was raped as an innocent schoolgirl, it had happened in a lane just off High Street in broad daylight, right around the corner from her school and from the state she was in she had obviously put up quite a fight, but no-one remembered seeing or hearing anything, not even her!

Being told that he was a wizard suddenly made things start to fall into place for Henry, so he asked the lady lots of questions about what other sorts of things could be done with magic and over the course of the questioning she let slip enough to convince him that magic had been used to cover up what was done to his mother, so the one who raped her _must_ have been a wizard. Oh yes, he'd go to their school and he'd learn everything he could about magic all right, and then he'd hunt his father down and kill the bastard for what he did to his mother!

Like Her Majesty's representatives, Henry agreed to hold off until any evidence they uncovered had been used to bring his father down, but he demanded to have first go at him, and everyone agreed that no-one had a higher claim to justice than he did. It was his inheritance test that gave them the perfect tool to use against Diggory, because Henry was confirmed as the first son and true heir to the House of Diggory. It also showed that one of his mother's grandmothers had been a squib from a Noble and Ancient House. Inheritance tests were accepted as conclusive proof of lineage in the magical world, and while wizards and witches didn't generally care about Muggles because they regarded them to be beneath anyone magical, due to the drastically declining birth rates in Magical Britain over the past century, children were regarded by most as a gift to be treasured, _all_ children. (Even squibs who ended up being banished to the Muggle world to cover up the fact that the family wasn't all magical.)

Therefore, having Amos Diggory's Half-Blood son and heir telling Magical Britain how his father had raped the descendent of a Noble and Ancient House almost to death and then left her to die in a filthy back lane with her blood and other fluids leaking from her body, only for her to be saved and forced to become a _mother at twelve_ and then kill herself while still barely thirteen because of the shame of what had been done to her, Amos Diggory was lucky to live long enough to be taken by the Aurors. The ones who witnessed it said that Diggory didn't seem to believe that he was lucky when his son was extracting retribution for what he had done to his mother though. The only one who seemed more impressed than disturbed by what he did to him was Alastor Moody, though the head of one of Her Majesty's magical strike units must have been impressed too because he offered Henry a place with them as soon as he finished at Hogwarts. Sirius wasn't surprised that Henry took the government's offer over his own to join the Black Guard, because he understood that Henry would see him as a wizard, and killing his father wouldn't have been enough to appease his hatred of wizards. He might have felt sorry for the wizards that Henry would be sent after if he didn't believe that most of them would deserve it.

* * *

Millicent had believed that everything was going to plan when she made the teary announcement that she was retiring because she realised that she'd failed the Boy-Who-Lived and Heir Black, as everyone was lapping it up at the ball. The announcement went over so well that she took the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot and endorse Amos Diggory as the best choice for the new Minister.

When the Wizards Council Alliance nominated Arthur Weasley as their candidate she thought that they had it in the bag, because Weasley was a joke! He'd barely been able to hold together a lousy two person office looking at Muggle toys a year and a half ago and her people in International Magical Cooperation told her that he was nothing but a figurehead, he didn't stand a chance against a respected senior Ministry official who'd been holding an important position for years.

The fly in the potion didn't appear until about a week and a half before the new Minister was to be voted in. That was when she went to some of the richest houses of their factions to ask for the money to make a few donations to ensure that there would be no upsets on the day, and they refused her. Her blood ran cold when one said. "You won't get another knut from me to support that little toad! My account manager showed me proof that he was involved in the thefts from my vaults two years ago. He also showed me proof that you _knew_ that Diggory was helping Nott steal from me and didn't say a word, so you won't be getting another knut from me, period. _Minister!_ "

She was told similar things by over half of the richest and most powerful houses in the Pureblood factions and any houses affiliated with them. Not having their money to buy the votes she needed to ensure Diggory was elected was bad enough, but it was obvious that she'd lost all their votes as well, and that was a disaster! She couldn't understand why the goblins would suddenly be coming out and telling wizards what went on in their world and why those wizards were angry at her instead of the goblins who had allowed it to happen? (It never occurred to her that goblins would return the gold that had been stolen when they told the vault owners about the thefts, and their gold's return was enough to induce wizards who valued honest dealings and gold over deceitful alliances to change sides. The thefts hadn't amounted to much before the goblins involved were caught because they had been trying to keep it quiet by doing a little at a time, so it was an easy decision for the Alliance to front the gold needed to get those wealthy houses to split from Bagnold's factions.)

Losing those houses' gold and votes wasn't the biggest blow though. No, _that_ came less than a week before the new Minister was to be voted in, in the form of the entire front page of the Daily Prophet being taken up by articles which showed incontrovertible proof that the first born son and heir of the House of Diggory was in fact a Half-Blood wizard who's mother (the descendent of a Noble and Ancient House) was a child who had been snatched by Amos Diggory on the way home from school and raped so brutally that she almost died in an attempt to impress his friends, the future Death Eaters Lucius Malfoy and Thaddeus Nott. They included prominent pictures to show what a sweet, innocent little thing Helen Jones had been at the time she was raped and told how she was only twelve when Henry Jones was born as a full term baby. Then they went on to tell how, because she and every other witness had been obliviated by Magical Accidents, there was no proof of what happened so she was reviled and degraded so much that she killed herself to escape the torment when she was barely thirteen. Diggory only made it out of the Ministry building alive because the Aurors arrested him and delivered him to the Muggle authorities before fathers who had daughters around the age that Helen had been when he raped her could get their hands on him.

Elspeth Diggory trying to argue that the girl was just a Muggle so Amos hadn't committed any crime under their laws led to her being questioned and admitting under Veritaserum that she'd known how young many of the Muggle girls Amos raped were even before she married him. That in turn led to her and her son being thrown out of the House of Diggory and the Diggory home without a knut as soon as Henry was accepted as the Head of the House of Diggory (though someone paid Cedric's school fees through to the end of his time at Hogwarts anonymously, making it clear that he wasn't being held responsible for what his parents did). Elspeth's family took them in, but Cedric's request to be made the ward of a friend's family was granted because he couldn't stomach being around his mother and her parents when they kept arguing that his father had done nothing wrong. He neither knew nor cared where they'd gone when they disappeared a year or two later, because he stopped speaking to them when he left.

* * *

In desperation, Millicent had Fudge nominated as her replacement after Henry Jones was accepted as Head of the House of Diggory, confirming that Amos was dead, but follow up articles showed that she had known exactly what Diggory did and had in fact ordered Fudge to give her any and all records of the incident so that she'd have Diggory in her pocket when she needed him (they omitted the fact that all records were magically copied into the archives and that was how Amelia located her copies). These articles ensured that most of the ones who were still considering doing as they were told and voting for Fudge turned around and cast their votes for Arthur Weasley on the day, so it was a landslide victory for Weasley.

The final blow came when Weasley arrived with the major Department Heads for the formal handover as she left the Minister's office for the last time, because Bones brought a team of Aurors with her and arrested Delores. Millicent saw a side of Weasley that she'd never seen before when she demanded that Delores be released and he laughed at her. "I don't think so Millicent, you see we have been looking into Delores' activities and I have decided that I don't want her type in my Ministry. In fact I don't want her type running around Magical Britain making trouble so the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will be asking her a few questions and if her answers match what we know, well Delores will be spending a lot of time on a certain island retreat that we maintain."

Millicent sent Delores a look to warn her. 'You better keep quiet if you know what's good for you!'

But the look she got in response to that was. 'You better get me out of there before they ask me anything if you want your secrets kept quiet!'

It was clear to see that she wouldn't get any concessions out of Weasley or Bones, so she got out of there as quick as she could without making it too obvious that they had her on the run. She had to get to Rufus before Delores got into the system, because he was the only one she had left who could get her out of this.


	9. Cleaning Out and Building Up

**BTW: If anyone's wondering how come Amos didn't become a Death Eater with his friends, it was because he failed the test. He was fine at attacking little girls but when he tried Muggle Baiting against adults and they stood up to him he wet himself and made a big mess because he started blowing everyone up in a panic. In the early days of the Wizards War of the Seventies Riddle and the Death Eaters were more selective so Diggory was rejected for being too much of an obvious coward because that wasn't the image they wanted to project.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.**

Millicent knew that they were in trouble the moment she reached the Head Aurors' Office, because it wasn't Rufus sitting behind the Head Auror's desk, it was a big black skinned Auror who she knew by sight but had never bothered learning his name. When she demanded to know what he was doing there and where Rufus was, he chuckled. "Damn! I should have known better than to bet against Director Bones when she wagered that those would be your first words!"

His amusement disappeared abruptly. "This is _my_ office now Madam Bagnold, and _Mister_ Scrimgeour is currently being questioned about illicit activities. Now…. What are _you_ doing in my office and what do you want with the Head Auror? Even if I didn't know that you have already officially handed the Minister for Magic's title over to Minister Weasley, you should know that you no longer had the authority to initiate any new official business once the new Minister was elected."

She immediately backed down and tried to find a way out of the situation she'd gotten herself into. "Oh I'm so sorry, I was just surprised not to find Rufus here. You see he's been a family friend for quite some time and I needed someone to talk to because I just had a nasty shock, apparently Delores Umbridge wasn't the witch I thought she was and Director Bones has arrested her."

He gave her a thin smile, saying "Really, an old family friend? That's odd as Rufus has never mentioned it and being the name dropper that he is I would have sworn that he would have told _everyone_ if he were a family friend of the _Minister_..." as he quite obviously jotted that down to add to Scrimgeour's questioning.

 _Ex_ -Minister Bagnold decided to get out of there before she gave him anything else to use against her. "Perhaps he was trying to respect my privacy Auror, anyway as Rufus isn't here I won't take up any more of your valuable time." And with that she bolted.

Kingsley Shacklebolt chuckled again and pulled out his communications mirror to fill Amelia in on what had just happened, swearing under his breath as he belatedly realised that she'd won the bigger bet she had with him as well, because Bagnold had been in his office less than ten minutes after she left the Minister's office.

She pretty much went into hiding after that, so it was days before she found out that _Minister_ Weasley's new Senior Undersecretary was actually Auror Investigator Alice Longbottom, or more to the point Countess Longbottom, Consort of the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom. Trying to start malicious rumours about the fact that the new Minister was filling the key positions in the Ministry with his allies didn't work as well as she expected, as most of the people she was trying to get on side just laughed and asked how that was any different from what every other Minister did? The fact that half of them were saying that Umbridge obviously _belonged_ in Azkaban and it was suspicious that she hadn't sent there long ago was an even bigger blow to her long term plans, because obviously having the stupid witch associated with her had turned key players in Magical Britain against her.

It didn't take Bagnold's people in the Ministry long to decide that they didn't like the new Minister for Magic at all, because Arthur turned everything upside down, starting the day he took over. Fudge was arrested and put in a cell beside Umbridge, Scrimgeour and the Head of the Floo Network Authority, and most of the faithful found themselves dismissed from the Ministry in the first week.

What they couldn't work out was where Weasley's people had gotten their information from, because they had been assured that the records used against them had been removed years ago. This was because most witches and wizards avoid any unnecessary work, so delving into the underlying controls of the Wizengamot and Ministry records system would never occur to them. There was also the fact that one of the first things anyone employed in the records office was made to do was to swear a magical oath not to divulge any details of how sensitive records were secured, and this was done by burying them in the archive system where a copy of all official records was automatically stored when they were created, so the archive system wasn't mentioned.

Their teams had spent months going through the records of what everyone in the Ministry had been doing, so all of Bagnold's key people were either arrested or dismissed, depending on what information they found on them, in the first week of Arthur's administration. The people they replaced them with were mostly Demi-Britons, and they had a simple answer for anyone who tried to argue about these new people coming in and taking over the senior jobs they'd been waiting to become available. "Do your job or you'll be replaced too! You're paid to work, not sit there and argue about what you think you're entitled to when you haven't done anything to earn it."

Most of the Pureblood Aurors and Hit Wizards had been dismissed for failing the requirements, and more than a few were arrested as well. John Dawlish, who'd been assigned as the Minister's head bodyguard, had actually been put through the Veil of Death and word was he wasn't the only one. The fact that they'd mostly been replaced with Mudbloods and ex-werewolves was both an outrage and a significant worry to the Purebloods, because it was further proof that their world was falling apart. Everyone knew that the new Minister and the Director of the DMLE were close friends, in fact word was that they were more than that, so having most of the Pureblood Aurors and Hit Wizards thrown out and replaced with _that_ in the first week after he became Minister didn't bode well for the old order who'd been taking the funds meant for the DMLE at all.

Needless to say, the Purebloods who made up the majority of those employed by the Ministry were _not_ happy about these new developments. The fun part of this, for everyone _but_ the Purebloods anyway, was the fact that the only jobs that most of them could get after they were dismissed from the Ministry was as servants for other Purebloods, because the ones who had been abusive to their elves couldn't get the elves to work for them again after Harry freed them from their enslavement.

* * *

The elves had been cursed by Salazar Slytherin when he was driven mad with grief by his beloved wife's death. He blamed her death on the elves, deciding that they had failed to do enough to save her, so the curse he placed on them was that they had to bond to humans, to serve them unquestioningly and never act against them, or they would sicken and die. As part of this curse, the elves could hold no magic other than what they drew from the humans they were bonded to, so they couldn't live without a human master. The curse was passed on to all descendents of the elves struck by it, and it was also passed on to any other elves they came into contact with who weren't cursed.

The goblins had suspected Salazar of doing this, as his wife had just died and they couldn't think of anyone else brilliant and deranged enough to do such a thing, but he died himself before they could question him so no-one knew for sure, not until Harry called the heirlooms of his houses to him, because the trunk that held Salazar's personal library was one of the main Slytherin heirlooms. That library included all of Salazar's journals, and his notes for the Elf Curse were in those journals. Salazar's journals were restricted to the Head of the House of Slytherin _and_ in the written form of parseltongue, so only Harry could read them and it was a while before he managed to learn how to read parseltongue properly. Even when he could read them, Harry couldn't work out what some of the last spells recorded were for, so he translated them for Gringott and the other adults and asked what they were meant to do.

When they worked out the intent of these particular spells, they all agreed that the curse needed to be lifted so they spent months untangling Salazar's deranged logic enough to work out how to amend the key parts of the curse enough to free the elves from the either/or choice of serving wizards or dying. When they were confident that what they had would reverse the effects of the curse safely, Emyr insisted on being the one who Harry cast the modified spell on, trying to ensure that Efa would be spared if it didn't work.

Emyr felt something when Harry cast the spell in parseltongue, but still felt a bond to Harry because he loved him, so all they managed to confirm initially was that he could refuse any order from Harry without immediately feeling the effects that had applied to elves if they tried to refuse their masters' orders. Gringott suggested what should be a more effective test, for Emyr to go out and find an elf who was obviously abused by his or her master and have him 'infect' them with the modified curse (they'd left all of the parts of the spell which spread it to other elves intact, only modifying the part that enslaved them to reverse the effect). If it worked and the modified curse 'took', that elf should be able to refuse orders that it didn't want to accept and leave its master with no ill effects, or even strike back against its master if the elf was attacked because their orders were refused.

It didn't take Emyr more than a few minutes to locate an abused elf in Diagon Alley and he went to him, asking him whether he wanted to be free from having to serve his master. When he whispered that death would be better than his miserable existence Emyr clasped his arm and the new 'curse' washed over him, making him drop the parcels he was carrying. The elf's master turned around at the sound of breaking glass to see an elf wearing clothes standing beside his elf, and the parcels on the ground so he started shouting. When his elf had the gall to stand up to him he tried to kick him, but he found himself being thrown down the alley to crash into a shop front _by his own elf_! Other Purebloods ordered their elves to go subdue the two crazy elves who were attacking their master as soon as they recovered from the shock of the sight, but that just spread the effect much more quickly. A delighted Emyr was shouting in Elvish for them to go and release as many elves as they could from the curse and that anyone who wanted to leave their masters should go to Gringotts so that they could be found new and better homes as free elves.

Within ten or fifteen minutes every elf in Diagon Alley had been released from the curse, but it was heartening to note that half of them had been well enough treated that they chose to stay with the ones who had been their masters. The other half (and a good number of those who stayed with their masters) popped off to release other elves, and by the end of the day hundreds of elves had popped into Gringotts, looking for the new homes that Emyr had promised. Most of these were sent off to the Potter properties to rest, recover and get themselves dressed properly while the family dealt with the furore in the wizarding world. A week was enough to see most of Britain's elves 'infected' with the cure for the curse so that they were freed from their enslavement, and another two weeks had enough elves outside of Britain infected to ensure that the spread couldn't be stopped. None of the family questioned the goblins' records which told them that it was spreading much faster this time than it had nine hundred years before, because the elves were actively trying to spread the cure, and the goblins helped with their floo and port key transport networks which allowed the elves to reach other countries before the news.

The arguments over this in the Wizengamot had actually turned more of the established families to Bagnold's factions' side for a while, because many of the wealthy houses who had relied on their elves for the decadent lifestyle they enjoyed were enraged that they suddenly had no-one to do everything for them. These houses demanded that whatever had been done to their elves be reversed and their property be returned at once. They didn't appreciate it at all when Sirius roared with laughter at that.

"The Djinn has been released you fools, and none of _you_ will ever be capable of putting it back into its bottle! The true heir of the deranged wizard who placed that curse on the elves before he died nine hundred years ago found the notes for the curse when he was accepted as Head of the House. _He_ is a true and good wizard who was outraged that his ancestor could unleash such an abomination on a magical people, so he sought assistance to modify it enough to free the elvish people and correct the wrong his family had done. As you can see he succeeded in his quest because the elves are now free to make their own choices."

He paused and looked around at the shocked, angry and confused looks on the Wizengamot members' faces, smirking as he continued. "What many of you may not know yet is that not _all_ elves have left the families they served, because some of them were being treated fairly by their families. So, if the rest of you ever want the elves' help again, you're going to have to start emulating those families. You're also going to have to pay them and give them decent working conditions, time for themselves and the rest of the things that humans expect."

That of course resulted in another eruption of complaints, threats and demands, and Griselda decided to add a dig. "Well I can attest that not all the elves have left, because my Betsy has chosen to stay with me. Things are much as they were before, but now Betsy tells me if she doesn't want to do something and we're discussing what she will be paid and what days she will be taking off for her personal time." The others in the family had to cover up their smiles at that, because they were all having _those_ discussions, but they weren't having much luck in convincing the elves to take fair pay and time off, as they all seemed to believe that token amounts of time and money were more than enough.

Now, over a year later, nearly half of the elves of Britain were working for their families and businesses and they were working with the goblins to help the elves create an Elf Nation. As with so many events over the past two years, the ones who were most upset about this were the wealthy Purebloods who used to control Magical Britain.

* * *

Harry and the others were working hard while this was going on, but then Harry, Hermione and Luna especially were no strangers to hard work. As soon as Harry came out of that intensive reconstruction session two and a bit years ago, the three of them dove full on into the physical torture sessions that the goblins called warrior training. They had all remained on the potions that helped them grow bigger, stronger and faster since then because they were being prepared to face Riddle and other enemies, so Harry was now at least two foot taller and had filled out quite a bit from that tiny, frail little waif who had suddenly appeared in front of the Grangers' car that day. Hermione was around the same height as Harry, but she hadn't grown as much as him because she hadn't started out stunted by malnutrition. Luna was smaller but then she _was_ a year younger than Hermione. Remus and Alastor pushed Sirius and Emmeline to join them and the kids in the training sessions as soon as they and Sirius came out of their reconstructions too, because as a Defence master and top Auror they understood the links between physical and magical strength and endurance.

The three kids were all far stronger and faster than they looked, because the goblins' physical education regime of work until you drop, then get up and do it again was as effective as it was punishing. Goblins weren't inherently stronger and faster than humans (no matter what wizarding lore stated), they worked damned hard to develop those advantages, and their training methods worked just as well for the few humans they shared them with, as did the goblin growth potions that they had developed for their warrior training, the purpose being to help them grow bigger, faster and stronger so that they could become more effective warriors. (This was why the warriors from their leading families such as Gringott's were generally bigger than other goblins. It was a matter of family honour that they be respected as warriors so they started the warrior training and potions as soon as they could walk, that and the fact that they were more likely to be challenged to duel for their positions.) As such, except where the potions were addressing a pre-existing condition such as the severe malnutrition that Harry and Sirius had been suffering from when they rejoined the magical world, the goblin potions required a considerable amount of physical exercise to stimulate growth while they were building muscles and reflexes.

While goblins chose physical fitness and combat with sword, dagger, spear and axe over magical combat, witches and wizards had become dependent on their magic for nearly everything, so physical fitness was a concept that had been forgotten by most of the wizarding world, but while the other children were included in the warrior training, for six months only Luna had made a serious effort and joined Harry and Hermione's training sessions morning and night every day. (Dora tried, but she had had difficulty getting away for the training as much as she'd like when she was at Hogwarts before Harry and the others arrived) This meant that the three of them just kept growing bigger, stronger and faster so at first glance they now looked at least three or four years older than they were, but so far the others had only grown a little bigger and stronger and looked more normal for their ages.

They also had the first two Elven warriors in nine hundred years training with them, Efa and Emyr, who had been accepted to bond to Harry at his birth but were blocked from finding him by Dumbledore when he had him taken away from the cottage where his parents were killed.

Being released from the elves' curse allowed Efa and Emyr to choose whether or not to attack wizards and other beings, and they fully understood what the goblins, Remus and Alastor were saying about physical strength equating to magical strength, so they joined the warrior training so that they would grow in size and strength and protect Master Harry and his mate better. This in turn resulted in another first, because with Director Gringott's wholehearted support, Balrog and Gamling became the first goblins to willingly bond with a wizard since Salazar cursed the elves with the abomination that Harry and the others had finally reversed. Along with Remus and Alastor, Balrog and Gamling bonded to the Head of the House of Potter as his and his mate's champions, because this would allow them to sense if Harry or Hermione were in danger and come to them.

* * *

Roger and Jean also joined them in the warrior training as much as they could because it was one of the few things they could do with their daughter as it was mostly non-magical. They both threw themselves into it whole heartedly and became a lot fitter and stronger as time went by, and as dense muscle mass weighed more than flabby flesh, they got noticeably heavier too. Roger finally noticed this one day when he was helping Jean to her feet and tried to give Harry some fatherly advice, quietly warning him that it was a bad idea to tell girls that they were putting on weight because they tended to get upset about it, but Jean heard and she laughed at him.

"Do you _really_ think that the girls would worry about that Roger? For a start, they're nine and eight, and they are _n't_ getting heavier because they're fat, they're getting heavier because they're growing taller and building up muscle as they develop the strength, speed and skills needed to put trained adults on their arses in a blink of an eye. Hermione and Luna are both trim, taught and terrific, something I've heard Harry telling them more than once…."

She stopped at that and turned to Harry. "Harry, Roger does have a point in regards to girls who have put on weight due to puppy fat as they go into puberty, as commenting on their weight in those circumstances _is_ likely to upset them, so do try to be diplomatic there. But here, you and the girls are being weighed and measured every week to track your development so Hermione and Luna are quite aware that they're heavier than they look. Just keep telling them how you appreciate the way they look and everything will be fine Sweetie."

After a hug for Harry she turned on her husband. "In fact _you'd_ do a lot better if you followed Harry's example Roger Granger! If you'd told me that you liked the way I looked now that I've trimmed down instead of worrying about dancing around the fact that I'm getting heavier as I build muscle, I'd be less inclined to prove to you that I'm quite capable of putting you on your arse!"

Roger looked for some support from Harry, but saw that he was on his own because Harry was making it clear that he was staying out of this. He had to shake his head as he conceded Jean's point, how the hell could the boy know so much more about handling women than him at _eight_ for god's sake?

Then he caught Dora smirking at him and groaned, as he should have known. They may be distant cousins but the bright teenager obviously regarded Harry as a beloved little brother, so she must have been coaching him on how to avoid the mistakes that all the older male idiots kept making. Roger shook his head in admiration because he had to admit that it was certainly working, Harry was doing and saying all the right things to keep the girls (including Jean) happy, while 'older and wiser' males like him just kept putting their feet in their mouths.

He nodded to Dora to acknowledge a masterful job as he idly wondered how well young Bill stacked up against Harry in this regard. Bill was an incredibly mature young man, after all he'd fought to try and save his family from adult conspiracies since he was a small child, but could he have worked this out for himself? Roger shook his head and made an effort to drop that line of thought because his ego had taken enough of a battering from being bested in this by a brilliant eight year old with a little coaching from the fair sex, he wasn't sure it could handle being made to accept the fact that someone who had just turned eighteen had managed to work out women when he couldn't at twice his age.

To get his mind off that, Roger thought about the other side of the kids' combat training, the magical defence training that Remus, Alastor and other wizards and witches were giving them. This training was something he and Jean could generally only see in the results of the explosions and such, not the magic itself, but Remus, Alastor, Sirius and Emmeline did what they could to explain it to them while they were doing the warriors training together. Those four had all thrown themselves into the warrior training and encouraged the rest of the family to do the same, because as they explained to the kids, physical strength and stamina generally translated to magical strength and stamina, and the speed and agility developed in the warrior training was just as much an advantage in magical combat as it was in physical combat.

The others had also tried to explain what an unbelievable step Alastor had taken in trusting the goblins' curse breakers and healers enough to put himself in their hands to heal the curse damage from the Wizarding War so that his body could be reconstructed whole again. The only thing he had made them leave was the magical eye that gave him the name Mad-Eye, because that gave him a significant advantage. In a rare open moment, Alastor had nodded to Harry and told Roger what had moved him to take that step. "It was the lad Roger. He has half of this world against him and he'll need all the help we can give him if he's to survive what's in front of him. I knew that I could protect him far better whole than I could have, damaged as I was, and I trusted Gringott to do what was best for him as well. It was awful hard to give in to the wee people's ministrations like that but I just kept tellin' meself that Jamie's son needed me, and I must admit I feel better than I have since I was a lad meself now."

* * *

Harry, Hermione and Luna's day started normally, with Crookshanks jumping up onto the bed to wake them before dawn, and as usual when they didn't get moving quick enough to suit him, he shifted into his Mngwa form, making it impossible to ignore him. With that they got up, quickly getting dressed, putting on their running shoes and joining Dora, Remus, Alastor, Efa, Emyr, Balrog and Gamling in the common room to they could pop down to the lake's edge together to begin their warm-up lap around the lake before they got into the real training. The rest of the group joined them sometimes, but only the core group never missed training.

They popped straight into the training room when they returned to the castle, quickly donning their armour to begin the sparring sessions. When they started two years ago, they wore no armour and used lightweight wooden swords, but they'd added the armour and real weapons as they built up the muscle to handle them. Only Balrog and Gamling could move as fast as they needed to in full chain mail and plate armour, but they'd been doing this every day for over fifteen years and were rated among the best warriors of the Goblin Nation.

Once the training session was finished, they all got cleaned up and headed down to the Great Hall, pretending that they'd only just gotten up like the other students. As usual, Percy bore the brunt of the twins' jokes, with only Dora and Penny doing anything to try and make them tone it down until Harry decided that it had gone far enough and flashed a look at the twins. Even if the younger boy hadn't been noticeably bigger than them, they'd been in warrior training with him and knew that he could hurt them quite easily and effectively if he chose to, so that flash of annoyance in his green eyes was enough to make them stop the teasing and be nice to Percy. Percy was still a little pompous and annoying at times, which was why Harry let them go for a while, but most of them knew that this was only a defence mechanism, it was his ego trying to cover up the fact that the younger children made him feel inadequate because he was struggling to keep up with them. The fact that he'd already given up even trying to keep up with Harry, Hermione and Luna just made the sting worse.

Aside from when he made his displeasure known though, Harry was generally happy and Remus, Minerva and the others watching him from the High Table were glad to see him acting more his age, laughing and having fun with Hermione, Luna and the rest of his friends. The annoyance at the twins quickly passed as he fondly watched Hermione lecturing, no…. _debating_ _with_ some senior Ravenclaws on an issue and Luna snuggled into him as she leant forward to interject her own points into the… ah... _debate._ They all knew that Harry would add his two knuts if and when he believed it was needed, as he had already shown quite clearly that he was at the same level as his two brilliant best friends, even before Remus 'let slip' the fact that he was the one who had reasoned out that revolutionary cure for Lycanthropy at the age of six, soon after he rejoined their world.

Others watched the three for reasons quite aside from their brilliance though, because they could see what beauties they (Harry included) were almost certain to grow into. For the adults who knew his parents, there was no question that Harry was Lily Evans' son, though they could see plenty of his father as well. They could see Pandora Cathbad just as clearly in her daughter, though of course with Xeno Lovegood's rather distinctive hair colour. Lily and Pandora were two of the most brilliant and beautiful witches Hogwarts had seen in several decades, as well as being best friends, so seeing their children following in their footsteps was no surprise to the adults watching, and any fool could see that Hermione completed the set, fitting in with them perfectly in every way. Thankfully, for the most part the adults didn't share the thoughts of the ones who watched the three hungrily, as the three captivating children were much too young for the desires that showed on their faces. Unfortunately for _them_ , the eyes of the elite ex-were and goblin warriors who made up the Black Guard assigned to watch over Harry and his family were exceedingly sharp, and they were _always_ watching for any threats to them.

This meant that all of those wizards (and witches) who showed unwholesome intentions towards Harry and the others were marked, so the entire Black Guard watched them like hawks any time they were anywhere near the Lords Group. Given that behaviour of this nature was quite often learned from others, details of these people were sent on to the DMLE to have their families looked into, and the DMLE were currently building cases to charge a number of older witches and wizards with crimes against children. Minerva was also looking for a replacement for one of the wizards on the staff because while they hadn't found any concrete evidence against him, just the fact that he was watching children like that meant that he obviously shouldn't be around children in any position of authority.

Four months into their first year at Hogwarts, most of Luna's predictions on the Hogwarts Express had come about, Luna had been with Harry and Hermione ever since that first night, the other girls often came in with them as well because 'Harry's Haven' (the goblin floo address of his wardrobe trunk residence) had become 'Harry's Harem' according to Sirius. A number of extra suites had had to be added because all of their girls (from Potter Manor as well as Hogwarts) spent most nights there, in the other suites if not in the oversized bed in Harry's suite. It was perfectly innocent because Harry and most of the girls were still years away from reaching puberty, it was just close friends comforting each other in a world that was different from anything like they'd known before, and the older girls decided to turn Harry's Haven into the girls' dorm, seeing as all the younger girls were there most of the time anyway. Daphne's friendship with George was growing, as was Fred's with Angelina and Percy's with Alicia, but that's what they were, because Percy was the only one of them who had reached puberty and one of the things that he _had_ picked up from Arthur was his innate decency.

Luna's predictions for the older ones had been proven correct too, Charlie had turned to Penny and CeeCee had quickly settled in with them, and Hestia was comfortable with Bill and Dora. They had gone further than the kids (except for Harry and the girls sharing a bed), but Bill and Charlie were gentlemen and let the girls set the pace on anything they did, so they were happy to keep their activities to kissing and cuddling.

* * *

Another prediction had also come about by Christmas, Minerva and the other Professors' prediction that the kids would be ready to advance a year by then. All the Lords Class students sat their Third Year end of year exams before they went home for the Christmas break, and did well enough that when they came back, the Third Year Lords Class had become the Fourth Year Lords Class. This of course led to quite a bit of complaint and arguing, and Griselda recused herself as Chief Witch for the Wizengamot session on the matter so that she could present the results of their exams as the Director of the Wizarding Examination Authority. Another outcome of this session was that the Director of Magical Education was dismissed because he was one of Bagnold's people, and his sole purpose in speaking seemed to be arguing against the changes at Hogwarts. He never presented any evidence to support his arguments, he just kept saying that the changes were wrong and that they had to go back to the way they were before. Arthur got tired of this and cut him off and dismissed him in the middle of his argument in front of the Wizengamot, making Griselda Director of Magical Education as well as the Wizarding Examination Authority on the spot because the Examination Authority did the bulk of the work performed by the Department of Magical Education anyway.

Seeing a Ministry Department Director dismissed out of hand like that took the wind out of the sails of those arguing for the sake of argument against change. This shut them up long enough for Minerva to present the information that the ICW's Education Authority supported moving students forward at the pace that worked for them, faster if they picked things up more quickly and slower if they took longer to learn, along with the evidence from the ICW that the students' results tended to be better when they advanced at the proper rate for them.

The brighter Fourth year students weren't complaining about this group moving up into their year, because while they recognised that they would probably lose the official top spots in the year, they knew that the competition from the younger students and their influence on the teaching practices would serve to push them to perform at a higher level than they would have otherwise. They _also_ knew that their results would have more of an effect on their future than their ranking in the year, so these kids were actually improving their prospects.

* * *

One of the main diversions they had from the constant work was spending time with Hagrid and his creatures. They didn't have the wealth of magical creatures that lived at Potter Manor, in fact the more interesting creatures they brought in for Care of Magical Creatures were _from_ Potter Manor, but they shared a love for creatures in general so spending time with them was an enjoyable break from the constant toil. It was amusing to hear Hagrid trying to have a quiet conversation with Remus, because even though he was far more controlled than he had been before Dumbledore's bindings were released, Hagrid's version of a whisper still carried a long way.

"It ain't right for kids like them t' be workin' so hard all the time! They should be at home playin' at their age, not here making the ones who are twice as old as them work twice as hard to try and keep up wi' 'em."

Remus chuckled, because he knew that they were all hearing this. "I hear what you're saying Hagrid, but Harry chose this as soon as he recovered from what was done to him and Gringott told him about his family. Hermione had decided that she was with Harry the first day they met and hasn't left his side since then, and Luna and the rest of them pretty much decided to stick with the two of them. Even Draco decided to stick with the other kids when he was given a choice, though in his case it was more a matter of pride and refusing to be left behind by younger girls to start off with. The point is that we haven't made them do this Hagrid, they _chose_ it, so we're doing what we can to try and help them achieve what they decided to go after. I won't try to tell you that most of our plans to restore our world to what it should be don't hinge on these kids, you've seen yourself how much of what has already happened was because of them, but they chose to do it…." He hesitated and then continued. "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they chose to follow the path the Fates have set for them, but the point is that it wouldn't be right to try and take that away from them."

Hagrid nodded thoughtfully, as he hadn't considered that aspect before, so while he still wasn't happy that little kids like these were working harder than most adults he resolved to just try and help them have some fun where he could.

 **A/N: Yes, Mad-Eye Moody's famous peg-leg and scarred visage have disappeared in this world, though he kept the magical eye because it was right useful. They told us that just about anything could be done with magic so surely _someone_ could find a way to correct curse damage? In this world, the clever little goblins did it for Alastor, but Sirius told them to give up on him after a while when they couldn't find an answer to the curse that had rendered him sterile in Azkaban as he already had an Heir in Harry and Emmeline felt she was too old to start having children anyway. They were certain that the curse had been Malfoy's doing, trying to ensure that Draco would inherit the Black fortune and power, but Lucius was sucked dry and died before they had a chance to get what had been done to Sirius out of him.**

 **And they also managed to reverse the curse on the elves and free them with the notes in Salazar's journal. About half of the elves stayed on with their erstwhile masters as they'd been treated decently, but they were servants now with pay and the same rights as humans, rather than slaves. The arrogant families who had delighted in flaunting their so-called superiority by abusing and degrading their elves however got a rude shock, because they had lost the elves' service forever. They were also fined the equivalent of a fair pay for their elves for as long as they'd been enslaved to them so that their elves had something to live on, and they had to hire witches and wizards to replace them. Most of the witches and wizards hired were Purebloods who had been fired from the Ministry or whatever because they were useless, so the wealthier Purebloods had to hire their own kind to do a terrible job of what the elves did, and pay them much more than the elves for the privilege. For some reason the Purebloods weren't as amused as everyone else was about this.**

 **NB: If goblins can breed with humans (as Professor Flitwick showed), their physiology must be close enough for the potions and treatments that work for goblins to largely work with humans.**

 **Another minor change, back at the start, is that Harry's family actually goes back to the first Druids, two and a half thousand years, but the Druids Council still started two thousand years ago.**


	10. All Over The World

**I've decided that I'll be borrowing one of the alternative terms that I've read in a number of the great stories here for Muggleborns, Newbloods, because as noted in one of those stories it's a much more positive way of representing what those of supposedly Non-Magical backgrounds bring to the Magical world.**

 **I dare say that some may not agree with my version of the origin of trolls, dwarves and such, but hope you have as much fun as I do with what happened with the ones in the middle. And no disrespect for Messers Cervantes and Tolkien is intended, it just fitted into the story line nicely IMHO.**

 **I also expect some to argue that the other founders didn't have magical swords and they couldn't do what I have here, but to them I ask, how do you know? Where's the evidence to say that only Godric had a sword and it could only be used as a sword in one form?**

 **A bit before half way through there's an unpleasant section, but I bid you to remember that this is a rampantly misogynistic society and I can see the prevailing views portrayed as being realistic in that scenario. They ain't nice people folks!**

 **From the reactions to something similar I introduced in a story in a different space and time, I also expect vocal opposition to one of the curses I created for this, but you know what? _Tough!_ I believe that the world would be a better place if something like that _did_ exist to deal with those types.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any** **established** **characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.**

They held their second Yule Ball at Longbottom Manor, but this time Harry and Hermione attended (as they weren't hiding Harry any more), along with the families of the ones who joined them at Hogwarts, and representatives of some of the premier families of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

With the goblins' help, they'd been using tours of their overseas holdings, properties and businesses to renew old alliances and forge new alliances to rebuild their power base across the Magical world. (In the old days, when the head of a wizarding house lost a challenge or feud with another head of house, their house with all its titles, holdings and belongings was forfeited to the winner, and the powerful Potter family had become fabulously wealthy through winning many of these challenges and feuds. Of course strict rules and hierarchies applied to what houses challenges or feuds could be declared on by a given house, and under what conditions. This practice still applied, even though the declaration of challenges and feuds was illegal across most of the Magical world now.)

When Harry learned about his holdings and titles in Magical Spain, he and the others in the family who were familiar with Nomaj literature burst out laughing, because one of his titles was Conde Quixote de la Mancha, so it appeared that Miguel de Cervantes may have been from the Magical world, or more likely got the information about Conde Quixote from someone from the Magical world. Most likely a squib who was angry at having been been cast out of the family there if they were willing to risk their life and soul by using the name and title in such a derogatory manner, depicting Conde Quixote as nothing more than the delusions of an old fool, and making the Conde into a mere Hidalgo at that, because that would have surely brought the wrath of the Quixote family down on them.

When they thought about it, they agreed that it was more probable that Cervantes had gotten the information about Conde Quixote from someone who from the Magical world like Tolkien and Hilton had. The consensus was that James Hilton had seen the name and description of the Potter estate in the valley of Shangri-La somewhere when he was researching his novel Lost Horizon, because there was nothing to indicate that Hilton had ever travelled in Asia, or been magical enough to see Shangri-La if he came across it…. But at least Cervantes and Hilton's sources hadn't gotten as much wrong as whoever it was that Tolkien got his information from. Calling goblin silver 'mithril', swapping the goblins and dwarves as the Magical beings and Non-Magical minions…..

At least Salazar wasn't responsible for the disgusting idea to breed smaller versions of giants to create troll and dwarf soldiers (they weren't bright or quick enough to be called warriors but enough of them made a formidable fighting force), as that had been done thousands of years before his time by other greedy wizards….. The mental image of what would have happened when they bred giants with common Nomaj humans, and then the results of those breedings being bred with other Nomaj humans and the little people to create armies of abnormally strong, magic resistant and stupid and aggressive but obedient soldiers was rather sickening…..

That in turn raised another question though, what happened to the human sized creations in between the ten to twelve foot high trolls and the three to four foot high dwarves? Had they all been wiped out in battle? No, they had more likely been gathered up after the battles and taken back to be subsumed into the hordes of Nomaj humans as strong but stupid peasants….. Yes, that made more sense….

Come to think of it, there were more than a few witches and wizards in some of the traditional 'Pureblood' families like the Flints who looked rather like trolls and were easily stupid and magically weak enough to be descended from those ancient attempts to create better spear and axe fodder for greedy nobles…. It was a well known fact that fertile Nomaj women were often grabbed in desperate attempts to save so-called Pureblood lines that were on the verge of dying out from extinction and abundant fertility would have been the prime criteria when selecting breeders to create those armies, so their descendents would be likely choices to keep the 'Pure' bloodlines alive.

As planned, stories soon spread about the powerful figures from across the Magical world who came to recognise that Duke Potter had returned to the Magical world, and this weakened the resistance against them. Because how could the 'traditional' houses openly oppose a house with such history and power which was recognised across the Magical world?

* * *

This led to two complications though. The first being that the eight year old Duke Henry James Potter was required to formally reaffirm the fealty of the House of Potter and his other British houses with Noble titles to Her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdoms. This in turn meant that the heads of all their other British houses with Noble titles were _also_ expected to formally reaffirm their houses' fealty and present their heirs to the crown of Non-Magical Britain, something that hadn't been done in nearly a hundred years outside of Harry's Grandfather and Great Grandfather, Charlus and Henry Potter. (James had never had the opportunity to reaffirm his houses' fealty when he was elevated to Head of House after Charlus died in the later stages of the war.)

It wasn't meeting Her Majesty that frightened Harry the most though….. no, _that_ was being there while Gringott and the others explained to Roger and Jean that having the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and Harry's other houses return to the Magical world as what most would see as a malleable child would bring the sharks out, and that the best way to protect him, and protect Hermione against being 'gotten out of the way' was to formally declare their betrothal. Hermione was delighted with the idea and agreed wholeheartedly, but the idea of having to face Roger and Jean's wrath at the idea of their nine year old daughter being betrothed to marry terrified Harry, even if it was Harry, Hermione and Andie (as their Regent) who would actually be accepting all the magical contracts. In the end this was anticlimactic, Roger had bristled as expected but Jean whacked him across the head and reminded him quite forcefully that they'd all been expecting this since Harry and Hermione met, it was only the timing that had changed.

Of course the situation wasn't helped by the fact that the family had also decided that Luna needed to be betrothed to Harry to protect her against those who would want to clear the way to the next heir after Sirius became the Head of the House of Black and its other houses, but Jean pointed out that this had been almost as obvious as Harry and Hermione for two years as well. In the end everyone was happy when Roger, Xeno, Pandora, Harry, Hermione and Andie formally accepted all the betrothals.

Gringott ensured that no more than the existence of betrothals to the Houses of Potter and Black was common knowledge (they'd kicked Sirius in the arse and made sure that he openly married Emmeline as soon as he'd recovered from Azkaban and was cleared because she'd put her life on hold after her soon-to-be fiancé was suddenly buried in Azkaban without a trial so they were safe). That way, only those who knew Harry and the girls well enough to see what they were to each other would know that they were his betrothed, but any families with aspirations to bag Harry while he was an easy target would be put on notice that he was already off the market.

* * *

Harry, the other Heads of House and their heirs presented themselves to Her Majesty at Holyrood Palace, because it had to be done in an official royal residence and Holyrood was the least obvious. A few of the Queen's non-magical retainers were frightened and disturbed when the naked ghost of the witch Agnes Sampson appeared and many of the witches and wizards present paid their respects to her, especially when Minerva, Harry and some of the others addressed her as 'Cousin Agnes' as they had familial connections to her.

Her Majesty was quite interested to meet this young man (He was no _boy_ , even if he was only eight. He was taller than she was and wore the proper morning dress and comported himself with a poise and grace that her own children had failed to master at over twice his age, not to mention the fact that he spoke many of the European languages flawlessly and didn't stumble once in observing the proper forms.) who had apparently turned Magical Britain upside down since he appeared two years ago. Her people who were working with the magicals had told her that while he wasn't involved in the day to day dealings, he _was_ involved in significant events and his input was quite often insightful and relevant.

She was surprised to find that, quite aside from the shock of hearing that the eight year old Duke was already betrothed to his nine year old best friend (who's parents were Non-Magical, just as his own mother's had been apparently) when he presented her as his heir, she was actually disappointed that the young Duke would not be a possible suitor for one of her granddaughters. It was only then that she realised how taken she was with this extraordinary young man. Another thing which came out in his discussions with the adults present was how was easy it was to forget his youthful appearance and voice as you became caught up in the knowledge and insights he presented on a wealth of subjects, and the same was true for his best friends Lady Hermione and Lady Luna (who were also far taller than expected and dressed and comported themselves with a poise and grace far beyond their years).

All in all, the day they spent reaffirming their fealty to the Crown at Holyrood Palace was a good experience for all of them, Magical and Non-Magical alike. Much like the information in the Wizengamot and Ministry's archives, the information recorded about the Lords and Ladies and succession of the Noble Houses of Magical Britain was buried in the Royal Archives, it was maintained as part of the peerages of Britain but hidden from the public eye, so the Queen and her trusted advisors were the only ones who knew of the Magical peers. Before they left, Her Majesty extracted promises from Harry and the girls to visit her more often, because she was captivated by these brilliant young paragons of nobility.

* * *

By the end of the Christmas holidays (as they were commonly known as in Magical Britain now), there wasn't anyone in Magical Britain who didn't know that Harry Potter was alive, back, and a force to be reckoned with in the Magical world. He, Hermione and Luna were also a force of nature, taking the others with them as they caught up to the other Fourth Year students by the end of February.

As well as wizarding magic, Harry and the others were still studying goblin and elvan magic. Chief among these in the warrior training was the only Goblin Magic really used in combat, their magical bucklers. Goblins were warriors, and as such they didn't hide behind shield walls like common soldiers, they stood up and fought! Goblin warriors generated impregnable magical buckler shields that were anchored to their hands and no more than eighteen inches across to stop or deflect just about anything coming at them. Accomplished goblin warriors could generate magical bucklers that were capable of withstanding repeated blows from giants with a clubs, maces, battleaxes or spike backed war hammers, as well as bolts or other projectiles cast by siege engines. As they discovered in the war against Grindelwald, their bucklers were also able to handle being hammered by anything up to and including heavy machine guns. This was obviously far more than the flimsy wizarding shields could cope with, as handguns were enough to overcome _them_ , and this meant that an accomplished goblin warrior's magical buckler was also enough to deflect any spells cast by wizards, _including_ the unforgivables.

Like everything else, it took a considerable amount of time and effort before warriors were able generate magical bucklers at that level, but Harry's and the others' were growing stronger all the time. After two years' hard work, the core training group could all cast eighteen inch wide bucklers that were far stronger than any wizards' shield, and six inch or foot wide bucklers that were strong enough to stand up to in serious sparring with spear, sword and axe. They sparred with all the goblins' traditional weapons to build up their skills, strength and endurance, but ever since they called their houses' heirlooms to them Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville had been using the swords, half-swords/spears and axes of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff for about half of their training sessions (these enchanted weapons felt much lighter and easier to wield when they accepted the user, so they used more 'normal' weapons to build up their strength and endurance).

* * *

The story they got from the founders' portraits was that when they were ennobled at the start of the Eleventh Century in recognition of the improvement in wizarding education that came from them founding Hogwarts, under the rules of the time, Rowena and Helga basically had to be treated as men in order to be granted their titles. As such, they all had to be knighted before they were granted baronies, so the goblins forged magical sword/spears, half-sword/spears, battleaxes, bucklers and armour for the four of them out of goblin silver. The founders' weapons, bucklers and armour looked alike except for the identifying designs and the names engraved on their blades. Godric's were set with rubies, Salazar's silver set with emeralds, Rowena's red gold set with sapphires and Helga's were black meteorite metal set with canary diamonds.

The native state of the swords was as a hand and half long sword with a thirty three inch blade, but they could be shrunk to a one handed short sword or extended into a two handed great sword on demand, and the hilts could become a six or seven foot long spear shaft as well. In their base state, the half-swords had a fifteen inch long blade and the four foot long axes had a three foot long metal haft, two foot long crescent blade and foot long curved spike to the rear of the blade, but they could both be shrunk or extended by half that on demand, and the half-sword hilts could also be extended to form five or six foot long spear shafts. As both Godric and Salazar's blades came to Harry, he shared Salazar's buckler, armour and weapons with Luna, Hermione had Rowena's weapons and Neville had Helga's, so all four of them had weapons of legend to train and fight with. The only thing Luna couldn't do with Salazar's weapons was call them to her like the true heirs could, she had enough of a blood connection to Salazar's line for them to accept her once they were in her hands so Harry called them and handed them off to her when needed. As a general rule they kept the swords shrunk to short sword length, half-swords to daggers and axes to two foot long when they were sparring. The rest of the family used magical goblin silver weapons belonging to their houses and Gringott's family which could also be shrunk or lengthened on demand, as warriors of the leading families of the Goblin Nation had been carrying these for two thousand years.

Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville also used the founders' weapons when practising Magical combat, because being crafted from goblin silver rather than cold iron made it possible for them to be used as mage staffs as well. The Head of the House of Ollivander at that time had worked with the goblins' master smiths to add this feature to the founders' weapons with the most appropriate magical cores, and the founders bound their images into them to turn them magical artefacts. As such, the founders' weapons were arguably their most important heirlooms.

The goblin silver's nature to absorb whatever makes it stronger meant that the ancient weapons had become much more powerful than their 'normal' wands by the time they were awoken by the true heirs a thousand years later. They lacked finesse for delicate work, but in combat they were incredible.

* * *

Harry, Hermione and Luna had to use their Magical and Non-Magical combat skills soon after they came back from the Christmas break, because a group of Sixth and Seventh year wizards suddenly cut them off as they were heading down a remote corridor on a shortcut from one class to the next. Hearing Luna's 'voice' in their heads telling them that there was no point in trying to go back because there was another group behind them confirmed that this wasn't going to be fun, even before the ambushers' mouthpiece spoke up.

"You've shamed my sister and made everything turn to shit since you forced your way into our world Potter, but that's all going to stop here and now!"

 **Unpleasantness begins**

Ever since he started at Hogwarts, Harry had had attractive Sixth and Seventh year witches (because they were of age to marry and the Head of a Noble and Most Ancient House was exempted from any age rules) from the more ambitious and unscrupulous 'traditional' houses trying to entrap him into marrying into their houses under their families' orders. Their usual methods tended to be exposing themselves to him and trying to entice him into doing things which would have been wildly inappropriate if he were the twelve or thirteen that he appeared to be at first sight, let alone eight as they and their families knew he actually was. The most blatant of these witches (including the ones who were with their ambushers) had grabbed his hands or face and rubbed them against their bare breasts lasciviously (between their legs too), this was usually enough to make Harry do whatever he had to to get away from them because that type of behaviour disgusted him.

Didn't they have _any_ sense of decorum or self respect? He knew that the purported modesty in Magical Britain purely applied to the public façade, but shite, he could hear the voices of most women he knew ranting about that type of behaviour having no place outside a two knut brothel and he wholeheartedly agreed with them!

Harry eventually grew so frustrated and fed up with these attacks that he had the adults with them at Hogwarts make arrangements to expose the actions of the most aggressive of these girls before Hogwarts broke for Christmas, setting up a goblin version of a pensieve to show everyone in the Great Hall the most blatant of these encounters in the hope that their being exposed that way would be enough to scare the others off. The girls who were outed of course jumped up, screaming that he was a lying little bastard and that someone had obviously modified those memories to put their faces on some other witches' bodies, while their male relations were demanding satisfaction.

They were prepared for that though and Harry clicked his fingers. At his signal, members of the Black Guard vanished the witches' clothes, letting everyone see for themselves the proof that it definitely _was_ them who were shown in those memories, unless the images had been prepared by people who knew _exactly_ what their bodies looked like. Then they cast purity detection charms over them.

The only things most of the 'traditional' houses cared about were wealth, power and the sanctity of their families' bloodlines. As bloodlines and being able to sell off their daughters for the best price were all they really cared about in regard to a witch's 'purity', the traditional houses had forcibly redefined the term 'virginity' in Magical Britain to mean not having had anyone ejaculate into their womb. That was why the 'purity' detection charms were originally created hundreds of years ago and ultimately had been developed into the version now in use about a century ago. This final version made the witch's body orifices glow blue if they had been ejaculated into, and this was overlaid with another detection charm for the womb which glowed red if the witch was, or had ever been pregnant. This red overlay combined with the original charm generated a purple glow if anyone had ejaculated into her womb, separate from the pregnancy marker. Due to the wizards and witches' innate laziness, no-one ever bothered making the effort to remove the blue glows for the other orifices, and they rationalised that as being to see what else the witches had been doing anyway.

It also wasn't uncommon for ambitious houses who were aggressively courting richer and more powerful houses to offer their daughters up to those houses on a 'try before you buy' basis. These offers were usually made to the Head of the House rather than the prospective betrothed, both as an incentive to 'sweeten the deal' and because an older wizard should be more likely to be able to control himself than a young and eager wizard…. More able to gauge how 'experienced' the girl was too.

 _All_ of those witches protesting their innocence showed either purple or blue glows when the purity charms were cast on them, in fact most of them showed purple _and_ one or both blue glows and two showed red glows as well, destroying any last doubts that it _was_ them exposing themselves to Harry and saying and doing what his memories showed. They were quickly covered up and ran from the hall, but word of what they had tried to do was guaranteed to spread throughout Magical Britain before the Christmas break was finished, it would most likely get around before the Yule balls.

* * *

Harry had already lost the argument with his ladies over their link to have them get out of there and leave him to deal with this until the risk to him was enough to call their champions to him, so he took note of the faces of the ones in front of him before lazily turning to look at the ones blocking their retreat, determining that there were at least fifteen or sixteen wizards and five witches who were all twice their age, and the wizards were all rather larger than him too. They were _all_ Purebloods of course, but the fact that they represented all four of the Hogwarts houses was surprising. The witches in the group were the ones who he'd had so very publicly shamed in the Great Hall before the Christmas break for trying to seduce him into marrying them, and he was rather surprised that their families hadn't hidden them away somewhere until the scandal died down.

He made a point of naming the mouthpiece and the most prominent Noble houses represented when he responded. "Heir Selwyn, it would appear that the Houses of Selwyn, Macmillan, Rosier, Abbott, Smith and Rowle are all ready to be made extinct, because that is exactly what will happen as soon as I report this attack to the houses of the Wizards Council Alliance."

Selwyn laughed at him. "That won't be happening Potter, you see once we've all finished having fun with your little whores, cleaned them out, put your seed into them and ensured that you've impregnated my sister, you're all going to be obliviated and given memories to show that _you_ made them come with you to a ' _party_ ' that my sister invited you to.…" He gave an evil smirk as he added. "The _party_ must have gotten a little rough though because your pet Mudblood and the Blood traitor will be too ripped up by the time we're done with them to ever have children but I expect that they'll recover somewhat eventually, at least there won't be any challenges to the primary heir my sister produces for your houses…. But after shaming her the way you did before Christmas, well all I can say is that the House of Selwyn will be demanding _substantial_ compensations from you in the betrothal contract…."

 **Unpleasantness** **end** **s**

Harry cut him off as he turned to Hermione. "See Mione, the inbreeding's made them all retarded."

She laughed at him. "You say that as if it wasn't what I've been telling _you_ all along Harry?"

Harry just smiled and kissed her on the cheek before turning back to face Selwyn. "I think you're overly optimistic about your group's chances here Heir Selwyn, but after what you just said about your plans for my betrothed you're going to die, so by all means, bring it on Ankles!"

Hermione and Luna had slipped their wands into their hands as Harry spoke and he and Hermione called the swords of Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw to them as soon as he finished, with Harry immediately handing Salazar's sword off to Luna and then slipping his own wand into his hand. They stepped apart far enough to give each other room to move and stood side-on to both groups of ambushers to present smaller targets, generating magical bucklers on both wrists as they did so. Harry smiled to his two girls and then turned back to Selwyn. " _Well?_ Are we are too much for you?"

Their ambushers had been taken aback when they saw the swords blaze into existence, but to most in the traditional houses, swords were nothing but the ceremonial trappings of a Noble house, so Harry's taunt kicked off simultaneous hails of spellfire from both sides as they rushed forward, trying to get close enough to hit them. Only one in five spells if that came close enough to be batted away with their magical bucklers, but just about every spell Harry, Hermione and Luna threw back hit their targets, and as they'd agreed over their link, many of _th_ _ose_ spells were nasty curses that they'd found in the Black library.

Their attackers were convinced that most of the hits that they were taking must have been nothing but luck, because _no-one_ could consistently hit wands end-on at that distance on purpose. When they got close enough to start hitting their three targets though, things only got worse for the attackers, because just about every spell was now either being reflected back onto them, or went straight past to hit the group on the other side. They kept closing in as they tried to find a hole in the three's defences, but then they suddenly went on the attack, and with the power of the magical swords of the founders, it became an instant bloodbath! By the time the alerts were generated and help arrived, every one in the attacking groups was down, with three quarters of them missing arms and legs or showing gaping wounds from the swords.

Memories were taken from everyone (willingly from Harry, Hermione and Luna and forcibly from their attackers). Poppy had quickly confirmed that Heir Selwyn, Horace Macmillan and a couple of the others were dying, so she stepped aside and let the Aurors collect their memories while they could. The memories taken clearly confirmed Harry, Hermione and Luna's version of what had happened, and the Selwyns' and Horace Macmillan's memories proved that their two houses had been the primary ones behind the attack, so Sirius, Andie, Xeno and Pandora had ample cause to demand that _all_ titles, holdings, properties and belongings of the Macmillan and Selwyn families (and appropriate amounts of the other attackers' families') be forfeited to Harry, Hermione and Luna's families. As Harry had told Selwyn, the Houses of Abbott and Rowle were also eradicated, but unfortunately the Rosiers and Smiths present turned out to be from cadet branches of their families so their involvement wasn't enough cause to bring the houses down. The Alliance acquired enough titles through this to shift the balance of power further in their favour, with Earl Macmillan's title making Luna a Countess in her own right _and_ elevating the House of Cathbad to a Noble and Most Ancient House.

* * *

It was only when the surviving attackers who were released tried to get new wands to replace the ones that had been exploded in their hands that they discovered that they couldn't cast with their wand hands any more, and in most cases the backlash on their magical cores because they had been trying to cast when their wands exploded meant that they couldn't cast with their off hands at all either. Effectively, most of them were now Squibs and the rest were little more than Squibs. Garrick Ollivander was hard put to hide his amusement at this, because the family magic of the Most Ancient Druid House of Ollivander, which had been creating mage staffs and wands for Britain's magical people for over two and a half thousand years, had kept track of most known factors which could effect witches and wizards' ability to cast magic. This meant that Garrick knew that the House of Black had created a Squib curse which had these effects for use in family feuds over seven hundred years ago, but this was the first time he'd seen evidence of it being used in over two hundred years. A quick visit to the Black Townhouse got him confirmation that the Squib curse _had_ been dug out of the Blacks' restricted family magic tomes to help the children protect themselves, along with the Rapists' curse.

Garrick didn't bother trying to hide his delight when Sirius and Narcissa explained to him what the Rapists' curse did. As an adamantly patriarchal society, it just wasn't 'done' in Magical Britain to create anything which could threaten a wizards' manhood, but before its fall from grace two hundred odd years ago, the House of Black had embraced its Druid House roots and protected its daughters with everything it had, so they created and taught their daughters the Rapists' curse. The immediate effect of this curse was to put a stop to all sexual urges in the recipient, but it caused the man's _entire_ reproductive system to wither away, so they would never again be able to rape women or girls (or boys for that matter) and they lost most of their other violent urges too because their testosterone levels dropped way down. If they hadn't created an heir before they were struck with the curse, it could also mean the end of their line.

The Head and Heir of the House of Black had both fallen in the battles at Castell Du in the last major goblin rebellion a couple of hundred years ago, and one of the more ambitious Noble Houses of the time had managed to buy enough support in the Wizengamot to get the next Heiress to the House of Black quickly married off to one of their sons so that they could gain control of the house. The son of this union who took over as the next Head of the House of Black was raised to follow his grandfather's beliefs and was therefore horrified to learn of the Rapists' curse and other similar curses in the restricted Black family magic. He couldn't destroy them though, so he buried them as deep as he could, in hope that no-one else would ever find them. That worked up until Sirius, Harry and Narcissa (as the Primary and Secondary Heirs and Steward to the House of Black) began researching the restricted Black family magic for things that would help protect the upcoming generation, and seeing as the majority of them were girls, the Rapists' curse was one of the first they were taught.

At this point, the wizards' being 'unmanned' was being put down by most as a result of their being unable to cast any magic, aside from the lucky few who were able to use their offhand to cast weak, simple spells. Garrick agreed that sooner or later the healers would work out that the wizards involved in the attack were actually losing their reproductive systems, but Garrick was the only other one who knew what had made them lose their ability to cast magic, so hopefully their sexual problems would just be attributed to whatever had caused that. After all, the wizards and witches of Magical Britain had proven that their ability to reason was almost non-existent, so with any luck they'd just see this as a related unexplained complication and believe that everything was failing because they were losing their magic.

* * *

One benefit accruing from the battle in the corridor was that just about everyone at Hogwarts was now terrified of crossing Harry, Hermione and Luna, and by extension anyone in their group. This meant they were all safer than they'd be otherwise, but it wasn't just at Hogwarts, because details of the story of what happened came out when they were claiming everything from their attackers' houses, which in turn led to the question that if three children could do _that_ , what could the adults of the Wizards Council do?

This caused a problem as well though, because it derailed the friendly relations they had been building with some of the students. Luckily the more rational ones pointed out that Harry, Hermione and Luna hadn't instigated this, that they were on their way to their next class when they were ambushed by a much bigger group of older students who wanted to do terrible things to the girls and they'd just defended themselves, albeit with devastating results. They went on to remind everyone that none of the Lords group had _ever_ attacked anyone else and had only reacted to extreme provocation, so if no-one attacked them, they wouldn't be a threat to anyone.

Harry stood and thanked them for reminding everyone that they hadn't attacked anyone, but wanted to clarify one point. "Thank you Miss Varney and Mister Talbot, it is gratifying to see that some people are able to see the facts of the matter and are willing to speak out in our defence. I can and will confirm that none of our group will ever attack anyone who has not attacked us first…. But I _would_ like to remind everyone that verbal attacks will also be responded to harshly….."

He put his hands out to Hermione and Luna and helped them to their feet. "While this was the first instance of an outright physical attack against us…" He stopped and grimaced. "Other than those witches' useless attempts to convince me to bind with them last year..." He was surprised by the laughter that comment generated but went on when it died down. "There have been numerous _verbal_ attacks on members of our group, most especially my betrothed..."

A shocked silence fell over the Great Hall and he suddenly realised that this was in fact the first public announcement of their betrothals, but he mentally shrugged, he'd said as much to their attackers so word would get out sooner or later. "Ummm, yes. Please allow me to introduce my betrothed, Lady Hermione Granger who will become Duchess Hermione Potter when we wed, and Lady Luna Lovegood, who is to become Countess Luna Black when we wed…. But what I wanted to say here is that these ladies, who are both very dear to me, have been reviled with names such as Mudblood, Muggleborn, Looney and Blood Traitor all too often in Hogwarts, and I hereby put you on notice that that will stop _**now!**_ "

That of course kicked off a wave of whispered discussions, until one brave soul spoke up. "Lord Potter?"

He tried to look as friendly as he could as he nodded to them. "Yes?"

"We can understand how you and your ladies would be offended by the 'M' word, 'Looney' and 'Blood Traitor'…. But could you explain why you find 'Muggleborn' to be offensive? It is the accepted term for people of our parentage… I am a Muggleborn myself… so I, and I see many others, am having trouble seeing how this is regarded as offensive."

Harry nodded with a smile. "Okay, I can see how most may not see that my way at first, so let's break this down. If it isn't a rude question, how did your parents react the first time you told them that they were what was known as 'Muggles' in this world?"

The boy frowned. "My father said 'What do you mean we're called Mugs in that world?' and I had to explain that it was 'Muggle' not 'Mug', and that was just what non-magical people were known as in the magical world, it wasn't a derogatory reference."

Harry smiled again. "Did it occur to you that your father actually had the right of it? It _is_ a derogatory term, because many British witches and wizards think that they're better than anyone non-magical and therefore look down on them. Elsewhere in the magical world, non-magical people are known as mundanes or no-majes. My Godfather and I have been touring our houses' estates and businesses around the world and we've found very few magical countries which are as prejudiced as Britain. The Minister for Magic is currently working to have the terms 'Muggle' and 'Muggleborn' officially replaced with 'Nomaj' and 'Newblood', as they are both more descriptive and have been found to be less offensive than the old terms adopted by the bigots."

That of course kicked off another wave of outbursts and one Pureblood wizard shouted. "What do we care whether Muggles like what they're called or not? If they complain we'll just put them in their place!"

Harry looked up at the High Table, calling out a question. "I take it this one didn't do too well in the mandatory Muggle Culture or History of Magic classes Headmistress?"

Minerva smirked as she cast a Sonorous. "No Lord Potter, and I can see that we will need to put him back a year or two until he manages to learn what he needs to know, as he wasn't doing too well at his other classes either once he started being tested without bias. What Lord Potter is referring to Mister Seinhoff is that even here in Britain, the non-magicals outnumber us ten thousand to one, and they have weapons that could wipe all of us off the map in the blink of an eye. _That_ was why the Statute of Secrecy was enacted three hundred years ago, because even then the magical world recognised that if we provoked the non-magicals we would be wiped out! Why do you think they allowed something like the witch trials and witch burnings to occur? The magical world could not afford to openly oppose the non-magical world so we had to stand by and watch witches and wizards be killed, along with the innocents who had been falsely prosecuted by the Christian church, to keep our secret!"

She turned her head to the speak to the boy's House Mistress without cancelling the sonorous. "Professor Vector, I believe that Mister Seinhoff needs to be moved back to the Fourth, or at least Fifth year classes and dorm, effective immediately. I had not realised just how ignorant he was until this."

Sinestra nodded as she looked at the boy. "Neither had I Professor McGonagall, he will be in the Fourth year classes tomorrow…. Mister Seinhoff, wait for me in my office please!"

Harry turned back to the other students as the soon to be Fourth year Slytherin angrily stomped out of the Great Hall. "As Professor McGonagall so amply summarised, _that_ is why we need to be more respectful to non-magical people, quite aside from the fact that many of them _deserve_ respect…. While we're at it, another thing that I believe that most people in Magical Britain have forgotten, even though it is part of the oaths that every senior Ministry official, Wizengamot member and Head of House must give when they are accepted to the position, is the fact that we are still subjects of the Queen of Britain… That means that _every_ government official and Head of House has affirmed his fealty to the _Non-Magical_ ruler of Britain, and yet the bigots somehow believe that they can denigrate all non-magicals with impunity? Idiots! Anyway, that explains why Minister Weasley is taking steps to implement a more appropriate term for non-magical people, as for the term Newblood, that is also more descriptive and less insulting…."

"As the goblins have proved with inheritance tests, nearly _all_ witches and wizards born to non-magical parents are the descendents of Squibs who were tossed out of our world at some point in the past. Some of them, like Hermione and my mother, actually reactivated long dormant magical families when they returned to our world as magicals, but more to the point, they brought new blood back into Magical Britain to refresh the old bloodlines that are becoming stale, or even failing. This is a good point to bring up other terminology that Minister Weasley is correcting. Once it is passed through the Wizengamot, the terms Pureblood, Squib, Muggle and Muggleborn will _all_ be banned. The old bloodlines will be referred to as Oldblood, Magicals born of Non-Magical parents will be referred to as Newblood and Squibs will be referred to as Nomaj. To avoid a pointless fight, the term Halfblood will remain to describe those, like myself, who are born of a union of an Oldblood and a Newblood or a Nomaj…."

He jumped in to cut off the obvious arguments. "Before anyone tries to claim that they are Purebloods and no-one can take that from them… That. Is. _Shite_!"

That shut them up, so he went on. "The goblins' inheritance tests, which have been accepted right across the magical world as being both accurate and reliable, have proven that there is no such thing as your definition of _Pure_ blood. _Every_ extant family has brought in Non-Magicals or Newbloods at some point in the last five or six generations to save their bloodlines from dying out. The only difference between families like the Potters and other so-called _Pure_ bloods is that _we_ didn't try to cover up our Newblood connections. Even the Gaunts, who were so inbred that they were insane and barely magical, failed to keep their line _Pure_ because Merope Gaunt, the last daughter of their house, got desperate enough to love potion a Nomaj and get pregnant to him before her family managed to inbreed itself to extinction, so the last member of their house was in fact the Halfblood Tom Riddle…. By the way, I know that Riddle, the so-called Lord Voldemort, _claimed_ that he was the heir of Salazar Slytherin through his mother, but that was a _lie_. The Gaunts were actually descended from Salazar's sister….."

Harry stopped and looked up at the High Table, when Minerva, Pandora and Filius nodded at him to go ahead, he turned back to the students. "We know this because _I_ am actually the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, through my mother Lily Evans!" With that he reached up and called the Sword of Slytherin to him, reversing it and holding it up by the blade so that the emerald and silver hilt and name engraved on the blade were visible to all.

Someone called out. "I thought the Potters were supposed to be _Gryffindor_ 's heirs?"

He quickly looked to see who it was who had remembered that, a little surprised to see that it was a Hufflepuff, but nodded, turning to stab Salazar's sword into the tabletop before reaching up to call the Sword of Gryffindor to him, stabbing it into the tabletop as well. "I'd say ten points to Hufflepuff if I could, but yes, as you can see I am _also_ the Heir of Godric Gryffindor through my father."

There was a snarky comment from somewhere on the Ravenclaw table. "Are you claiming to be the Heir of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff _too_ Potter?"

He heard Hermione's firm 'My turn!' over their link before she reached up and called Rowena's sword to her and said "No, _I_ am the Heir of Rowena Ravenclaw!", stabbing the sword into the tabletop beside Salazar's and Godric's before adding. "We know who Helga Hufflepuff's heir is too, but they are not currently at Hogwarts."

Luna reminded Harry that he'd allowed himself to be sidetracked over their link and he nodded, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and forcefully saying. "As I was saying…." when they'd quietened down he continued in a more reasonable tone.

"There is no such thing as a _Pure_ blood in Magical Britain and that is why Minister Weasley is in the process of banning that false self aggrandising term from being used here, just as he is banning all the derogatory terms that were previously used for non-magicals, Newbloods and Oldbloods who _weren't_ bigots. So any of you who insist on falsely calling yourself Purebloods, know that I will laugh at you and report you for using a forbidden term, but more to the point…. If you _ever_ use the terms Mudblood or Muggleborn in my hearing, _especially_ in regard to Hermione, or Blood Traitor in regard to Luna or others, you'll have to deal with me, and you _won't_ like that. Just ask Macmillan and Selwyn… oh wait, you can't do that any more, _can_ you?"

His eyes flashed at that and a chill washed over most of the people in the hall, anyone who hadn't known that he was someone to be feared before this certainly knew it now.

 **A/N: If someone wants the 'Ankles' reference explained, go and look up its derogatory slang meaning because I'm not repeating it here. ;^)**

 **A/N: Strange timing, I received this rather corny 'Royal Job Interview' email from a friend while I was writing the bit about them presenting themselves to the Queen. ;^)**

 **Two blokes living in the Australian outback saw a couple of jobs advertised by the Queen of England. She was looking for footmen, to walk beside her carriage.**

 **They applied and were very happy to be flown to London for an interview with Her Majesty.**

 **She says to them: "Because my footmen must wear long white stockings, I must see your ankles to be sure they are not swollen or misshapen."**

 **After they show her their ankles, the Queen says: "It is also important that you don't have knobby knees, so I need to see your knees too."**

 **Once she has seen their knees, she says: "Now everything appears to be in shape, so I just need to see your testimonials."**

 **Nine years later, when the pair are finally released from prison, one of the blokes says to the other: "I reckon, if we just had a bit more education we would have got that job!"**


	11. Breeding

**OK, I have a bit of a bone of contention to pick with something in one of the reviews for this story, the opinion stating that it was 'all a little too easy' and therefore Harry's character wouldn't develop. Let's see, first his parents are both murdered on the same night when he was fifteen months old, with his Mummy being killed right in front of him while pleading with a monster to spare him even as she was murdered. Then the manipulative old bastard (MOB) has him forcibly taken away from his rightful guardian (who he had thrown into Azkaban without a trial), and dumps Harry on a doorstep in the middle of the night in winter, leaving him to the tender mercies of people who'd rather torture and kill him than care for him…. So he's locked up, starved, beaten almost to death numerous times, flogged, burned and worked until he drops on a daily basis from the time he can walk up until he escapes after he was almost killed yet again at the ripe old age of six. Once he escapes and is healed by the goblins, he works day and night with gruelling physical training sessions morning and night (if not morning, _noon_ and night) to ready himself for the trials of the magical world, and this is _easy_? Sorry, if that's easy in your experience, I really don't want your life!**

 **NB: After thinking about it, there was a minor change in regard to the founders' swords, because there was usually a companion knife or something that went with swords and a battleaxe in medieval times, so each of the four now has a matching set of sword, half-sword and battleaxe, and the half-sword can also shrunk to a dagger or extended to a short sword or spear and the** ** **battleaxe shrunk to two foot long or extended to six feet with the corresponding axe blade** as well. The others were using magical goblin silver swords, half-swords and battleaxes that could be shrunk or extended too as the goblins' leading families had had and used these for two thousand years, in fact the designs for the Founders' ******swords, half-sword/spears and battleaxes** came from them. **

**Another clarification which will probably come out over the next few chapters is the goblin floos, these are actually enchanted mirrors which can do everything and more than the wizarding fire based floos. James and Sirius got the ideas for the Marauders' communications mirrors from notes in the Potter library about the goblin floo mirrors. While basic functions used for the communication mirrors are powered by runes they also draw power from their users for more demanding things, so the floo mirrors would have similar ranges to the wizarding floo networks for wizards and witches of normal magical power, but more powerful witches and wizards can reach much further. Pocket mirrors can also be expanded to be used as portals if the users have the ability to do so.**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.****

Arthur's active punishment of the use of forbidden terms and forcefully debunking the myths of blood status, 'Pureblood' breeding and superiority over non-magicals certainly threw the cat among the pigeons, but the so-called Purebloods couldn't stand against the voting majority the Council Alliance held in the Wizengamot, or the power of the International Confederation of Wizards. What the other side didn't know of course was that the Alliance had been working towards this point for two years now, as soon as Sirius was cleared and accepted the title of Heir Black, Lord Arcturus Black had made it known to everyone in the Magical world who had alliances with or did business with the House of Black that Heir Sirius Black spoke for the House of Black and had therefore had full authority to make deals, call in commitments and form alliances in the name of the House of Black.

Therefore, as the family toured all of their houses' holdings and businesses around the world, Sirius was using the Black and Potter alliances to share information about the true might of the non-magical people of the world and what they could do to the Magicals if they were given any reason to feel that the Magicals were a threat to them with the local Magical communities. He was also sharing information about the increasing use of non-magical technology which had removed any possibility of effectively covering up magic use in the non-magical world. While understanding of this outside of Magical Britain was generally better than the Brits', they'd spent most of the past two years manoeuvring and leveraging relationships in enough countries of the ICW to get the ICW to take an official stance on the matter and update the International Statute of Secrecy to reflect this.

That stance was to issue the mandates which stated that drawing the non-magicals attention to the magical world by displaying magic, denigrating them or attacking them in any way was a serious enough breach of the International Statute of Secrecy to justify the ICW officially calling for sanctions against the guilty parties, be they Magical individuals or Magical countries. The other mandate was if anything, more controversial than the risk of riling the non-magicals (which showed where the so-called Purebloods' priorities lay), as this was the banning of any references to blood-status and forbidding and penalising any and all related uses of the terms 'Mudblood', 'Muggle', 'Muggleborn', 'Half-Breed', 'Beast', 'Blood Traitor' and 'Pureblood'. Use of the term 'Mudblood' was fined a thousand galleons per utterance, 'Half-Breed', 'Beast' and 'Blood Traitor' cost five hundred galleons a time and saying 'Muggle', 'Muggleborn' and 'Pureblood' cost them a hundred and fifty galleons each time they were uttered.

All of these words and phrases were added to the taboo words that were monitored by the DMLE and the fines were levied automatically, and under the terms of the new rules if there wasn't enough gold in their vaults to pay the fines, their property was seized and sold to provide the gold needed. A few who couldn't or wouldn't control their mouths were destitute inside a week. What the traditionalists didn't notice at first was that prosecution of the unforgivable curses was also made into an automatic process. The system always gave the information of what witch or wizard cast what unforgivable, but while the traditionalists controlled the system they made judgement calls on the basis of who cast them and who the victims were so most occurrences were swept under the rug without any punishment. That practice was now over, if an unforgivable was cast it, the identity of the magical signature casting it and the date, time and location were automatically recorded and Aurors or Hit Wizards immediately port keyed to the location to apprehend the offender. If they tried to mask their magical signature that pushed the charges even higher because it confirmed criminal intent.

On top of the forbidden taboo words, the rules about exposing their world to the non-magicals were strengthened and revised to meet the ICW's new requirements. Anyone who entered any area that wasn't officially designated as Magical _only_ without first ensuring that they were dressed and behaving in a manner that would blend in with the non-magicals was fined five thousand galleons per person for each instance (parents were fined for their children). Any display of magic in front of non-magicals who weren't already cleared to know about magic was fined ten thousand galleons per instance, the only exceptions being accidental magic performed by young children of non-magical backgrounds who didn't know what was going on. Idiots who ignored these new laws about exposing Magical Britain were often caught by their use of the term 'Muggle' in non-magical areas. They were also tagged by surveillance cameras in Non-Magical Britain and this information was fed back to Magical Britain via Demi-Britain in real time and between these monitoring methods very few visits which threatened the Statute of Secrecy slipped through the cracks.

Also, any obliviations or other memory charms or compulsions (on magicals or non-magicals) performed without the Director of the DMLE's _explicit_ approval resulted in an automatic ten thousand galleon fine and a month in Azkaban per instance and they added all of these spells to the taboos so that they would be automatically recorded and acted upon. The 'time honoured' practices of Muggle baiting and having fun with Muggle girls then wiping their memory of the occurrence were quickly stamped out and those who attempted it paid in gold and prison sentences. When the traditionalists got all up in arms about this, their ICW representatives were called in to explain how _all_ member countries of the ICW were now being told 'Fix this mess or we'll fix it for you!', because the Magical world finally understood that it couldn't afford to be exposed. The fact that the International Statute of Secrecy had been revised to include these measures was a major shock to the 'traditional' houses as they strongly believed in their inalienable right to do as they chose, so being told that this could be enforced by international law was something they had trouble grasping.

* * *

Hearing that the Goblin Nations now had official representation in the ICW was another thing that the traditionalists had serious trouble accepting, because two years of pointing the facts of life out to those who really ran the Magical world with thinly veiled threats and hard bargaining had resulted in an official position of equal but different and each of the Goblin Nations having a representative in the ICW who had equal authority to a human representative. Balrog was the nominal ICW representative for the Goblin Nation of Britain and Gamling was the Magical People of Britain's nominal Ambassador to both Magical and Non-Magical Britain, but as twins their magical signatures were close enough to allow them to exchange the two roles when they chose in order to gain more varied political experience for when they eventually took over from their Uncle Gringott as the leaders of the Goblin Nation of Britain.

Those who really ran the ICW secretly thanked the goblins for weeding out the brainless traditionalists who couldn't accept the fact that the world was changing and nothing could stop it. Every one of the fools who challenged the Goblin Nations' representatives to duels to 'get rid of the filthy beasts' faced a goblin wielding a magical buckler and extended goblin silver half-sword and was chopped to pieces, their vaunted 'wizards' superiority over lesser creatures' being shown to be nothing but empty invective. The rest of the ICW representatives watched with increasing amusement and appreciation as the goblins cleared away the dregs of the wizarding world for them, nominating wizarding houses to accept the seats, titles, holdings and wealth of their vanquished challengers. The wealth and power of the Houses of Potter and Black grew even more in Magical countries across the world as a result of these nominations, and the line of the Potters reaffirmed its place as the Friends of the Goblin Nations because Harry and Hermione had been the ones who came up with the idea to push for this.

* * *

Of course, taking away the members of the traditional houses' 'right' to do as they pleased to anyone they believed to be below them had the effect of pushing some of the unaffiliated houses into the arms of Madam Bagnold's factions in Magical Britain, but the brighter traditionalists were now beginning to open their eyes, seeing the true state of their world and questioning whether they really wanted to go back to the 'old' ways. This in turn led to some of the unaffiliated houses and even some from Bagnold's factions realigning themselves to stand with the Wizards Council Alliance, and Madam Bagnold was most definitely _not_ happy about that, because the houses which aligned themselves with the Alliance were mostly wealthy and powerful (being the more intelligent of the traditional houses) while she acquired…. Well not to put too fine a point on it, she got the dregs, those traditionalists who were too stupid and hidebound to accept the fact that no matter what _they_ chose to believe, the magical world was united on this and anyone who fought against it would be stepped on. Millicent began making plans to scrape together everything she could and get out of Britain before it was too late, cursing the ones who were behind this revival of the Alliance as she did so.

In the first month of the fines for using the forbidden words being implemented, the family members at Hogwarts were having a great laugh at the flood of owls arriving every morning with increasingly harsh and threatening letters from parents to their children telling them to shut their fool mouths before they bankrupted their families. The favourite sport at the Lords table had become winding up the more bombastic and arrogant of the traditionalists' children to see who could induce the biggest fines for a single incident. Hermione was crowned as the hands down winner of this after she managed to raise nearly a hundred thousand galleons from one rabid purist and well over a quarter of a million galleons more from what his other friends were shouting at her at the same time with just one 'sympathetic' question that she made sure that they 'overheard' as they were passing. "Don't you think it's a shame that all the families who insist on holding to their 'traditions' of marrying close relations will have a hard time having children who are capable of reading and writing, let alone wielding magic, within a couple of generations Professor Hagrid?" Having a Muggleborn and Half-Breed discussing Pureblood families in less than deferential terms was guaranteed to get a reaction from the set upon traditionalists, and it did…. the fines piled up unbelievably fast because every second word seemed to be 'Mudblood' or 'Beast'.

She was so successful that a laughing Arthur and Amelia came to Hogwarts to ask them to tone it down a little, because the fines being generated at Hogwarts were exceeding what was generated in the rest of Magical Britain so demanding questions were being asked in both the Ministry and Wizengamot. More to the point, they need pensieve memories of the incident to take back and display in the Wizengamot because others there didn't believe that it was possible for nearly four hundred thousand galleons in fines to be _legitimately_ levied from one incident. When they stepped out of the mirror floo they were greeted with a flurry of cries of "Uncle Arthur!" "Auntie Amy!", "Dad!", "Minister" and "Director". Andi, Cissa and Griselda came with them to hear first hand what they needed to clean up in the Wizengamot so there were plenty of calls of "Auntie Andi!", "Auntie Cissa!", "Auntie Griz!", "Mum!" and "Gran" too. Once the greetings and hugs were out of the way they sat down to discuss the incident and view the memories.

Amelia was shaking her head and trying not to laugh when the memories finished playing. "You're a wicked, wicked girl Hermione! You knew exactly how those inbred idiots would react and you set up that scene in the Great Hall perfectly to make them explode."

Hermione gave her a smile that was the very essence of innocence. "Whatever do you mean Auntie Amy? It wasn't my fault that those boys were eavesdropping on a private discussion I was having with Professor Hagrid about the perils of inbreeding and suddenly started shouting all those terrible, nasty words at us! Surely you cannot be blaming me for their behaviour?"

That was the straw that broke the camel's back and Amelia cracked up, with tears of laughter streaming down her face. When she got herself under control she came back with. "Oh I'm so sorry Dear! I should have known that you'd never do anything so base as to bait pathetic creatures like that who hardly have a enough brain cells to walk and talk at the same time, because after all that would be cruelty to dumb animals, which is just plain wrong."

The guilty look that crossed over Hermione's face at that cracked up everyone else, because they could see that she was actually taking Amelia's jibe seriously. She was obviously hurt by the laughter though so Harry hugged and kissed her, saying. "Don't cry Mione, we aren't laughing at _you_ , it's just the way you looked guilty about the thought of actually being cruel to poor defenceless creatures when Auntie Amy said that. You _weren't_! I'll concede the fact that they're no brighter than the trolls that they were obviously descended from but they're hardly _defenceless_ , they attacked _you_ remember!"

Seeing the hurt on Hermione's face had quickly sobered Amelia up. "I'm sorry Sweetie, I never meant to hurt you like that. Harry's right, we _weren't_ laughing at you, it was just the idea that you could actually feel guilty about baiting those pigs so successfully struck us as hilarious….."

She glanced at the Black sisters. "In fact I think you'll find that Auntie Andi and Auntie Cissa are trying to work out how to get away with doing something similar to their fathers in the Wizengamot, because most of the fathers aren't any brighter than their sons."

Andi laughed. "Indeed! It's quite a treat to see Cissa so jealous because she didn't think to do something like this to them before now."

Cissa stuck her nose in the air, playing the haughty Pureblood lady which she could pull off better than anyone else. "You are incorrect sister! I am most definitely _not_ jealous! I am merely exceedingly _envious_ that our sweet little Hermione managed to show the rest of us up so well by coming up with such a masterful stroke against the troll-gets before I could. I obviously need to put more effort into my own planning.… Actually…. My Lord, would you grant me the boon of allowing me to make use of your information about so many of them being descended from trolls? That information could reap quite a harvest in the Wizengamot if I played it right."

Harry gave her a regal nod. "Of course my dear Baroness Black, anything for family."

That had Hermione laughing with the rest of them, and she gasped like the other girls when they heard that her play in the Great Hall had actually reaped three hundred and eighty seven thousand, seven hundred and fifty galleons in fines which could _only_ be used to help fund the new departments and education programs created for the purpose of bridging the gaps in magical people's knowledge and relations that the traditionalists were arguing about. What they weren't about to admit of course was those programs hadn't been created as a result of the ICW's new rulings, they had been established in Demi-Britain over the last couple of years to help the ex-weres, Newbloods and other magical beings, and related Nomag people. These new fines were lessening the financial burden that the Potter and Black families had been carrying before this though, and in fact they were now being reimbursed for part of what they'd invested to establish them because the allocated budgets had included coverage for the necessary costs to establish them.

* * *

The family knew full well that the changes they wanted to make would take years to achieve, but their campaign over the past two years in Magical Britain, Non-Magical Britain and the rest of the Magical world had already pulled the rug out from under the traditionalists. The only reason they hadn't moved to squash them yet was that doing such a thing without first driving a wedge between them and the others who still thought the old way could lead to a desperate uprising of those with a similar mindset in hope that they could wrest control of Magical Britain back from the Wizards Council families and return to the old ways.

To move things in the right direction they had been stripping away the discriminatory laws that the traditionalists had implemented to shore up their infrastructure and give them leave to do whatever they wished. Getting the might and rights of the non-magicals and other magical people recognised by the ICW so that they could use the power of the ICW and the Statute of Secrecy to push through the same recognition in Magical Britain was major step. The traditionalists were so stunned by that that they failed to see the danger of making the forbidden words into laws until it was too late, as between the ICW's mandates and the power the Wizards Council Alliance had in the Wizengamot those laws couldn't be repealed without a major revolution.

Using the Wizards Council and Wizengamot laws to strip away the wealth, power and prestige of so many traditionalist families and destroy them had done quite a good job of pulling the traditionalists' teeth, and the fines for the forbidden words, threatening the Statute of Secrecy and unauthorised obliviations, memory charms and compulsions was quickly eating into funds that they may have used to buy support for whatever activities they may be inclined to try to regain their 'rightful place' in Magical Britain. The troll heritage of many of the most ardent traditionalist families was enough to finish them.

* * *

Jean Granger would have fitted in with Lily Evans and Pandora Cathbad as well at Hogwarts as Hermione fitted in with Harry and Luna, because she had the same razor sharp wit and drive to delve into the depths of any issue that challenged her. The debate that Harry had sparked with his musing about the probability that it was the descendents of the troll soldier breeding programs that had been used to keep so-called Pureblood lines from dying out had Hermione and Luna diving in to help Harry prove his theory, their mothers joined them in this and they ended up taking over much of the research because the children were already studying and training more than twelve hours each day.

What few humans knew was that the goblins had been the world's knowledge keepers since time immemorial, and that their most secure vaults around the world were actually used to store several millennium's worth of this knowledge and the evidence to support it. This knowledge was how the goblins had guided much of the world through the ages, and contrary to the beliefs held by most humans, it was knowledge rather than gold that they held most dear. Therefore when Harry, Hermione and Luna, then Jean and Pandora, respectfully begged permission to delve into this knowledge in order to trace the lineage of prominent so-called traditional _Pureblood_ families back to the ancient troll soldier breeding programs, they were all given the honour of being officially blood adopted into Gringott's family so that they could access the secret vaults where the goblins' archives were kept safe, the fact that this was a mark of great respect wasn't lost on anyone either.

It had taken them nearly eighteen months to unearth and verify the requisite knowledge and have the evidence formally accepted into the goblins' blood records, but they could now offer incontrovertible proof via the universally accepted goblin inheritance tests that the fertile young Muggle women that many of the traditional houses had stolen from their families and forced to bear heirs to save their failing bloodlines were in fact descended from the ancient troll breeding programs. They hadn't done anything with this knowledge as yet, but as Narcissa said, one of their ever present rants in the Wizengamot about how disgusting and unacceptable it was for decent wizards and witches to be forced to accept _creatures_ such as goblins as their equals was the perfect opportunity to make use of it, so they made plans to do so.

* * *

The next time the Head of one of the more prominent and powerful of Bagnold's traditionalist Houses launched into this rant in the Wizengamot, Narcissa struck, standing and being recognised by Griselda immediately as the Steward of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. "Lord Shafiq, I find myself confused by the position you present….." She paused long enough for him to try and respond but spoke again to cut him off. "If you are arguing that those with the blood of non-human beings should have no rights within Magical Britain, what are _you_ doing here?"

She somehow sent a bundle of parchment to the Court Scribe and had them quickly duplicated and sent to everyone on the Wizengamot benches with a wave of her hand as she continued. "As everyone will see on the parchments before you, the lineage of the Head of the Noble House of Shafiq shows several instances where young non-magical girls as young as ten were stolen from families of proven fecundity to beget heirs upon in order to prevent their line dying out. I can only presume that the extreme youth of the children being stolen from their families was intended to ensure their _purity_ , but it appears that Lord Shafiq's family, and the other families listed, were only interested in the girls' fecundity and purity, _not_ their bloodlines. You see research into the bloodlines of these children has revealed something quite interesting, as these weren't the first instances of them being selected for breeding because of their fecundity. It was discovered that in ancient times, the ancestors of these girls had been bred to giants to create troll armies and there were numerous crossings shown with other bloodlines used for the same purpose, so a significant portion of their makeup was troll. Therefore, by Lord Shafiq's own argument, he and his entire family should be permanently banned from the Wizengamot and the Ministry as they have no right to be involved in any matters of import related to Magical Britain. The same applies to the other Noble Houses listed on the first page as their Lords have all expressed the same views before this august body, so I hereby move that these families all be removed and permanently banned from both the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic."

She had stunned them into silence momentarily with this so Andromeda jumped up and seconded the motion as the Steward of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter just before the chamber erupted in a maelstrom of shouts of outrage and threats, and Griselda had to fight to stay her laughter as she silenced them to ask whether anyone else wished to speak before they voted on the matter which had been now moved _and_ seconded. Shafiq and the other Heads of House nominated of course argued and swore blind that Narcissa's claims were false, but refused to take inheritance tests as challenged as they knew that the Houses of Black and Potter would have ensured that their information _was_ correct before they tried something like this.

After another few hours of weak and ineffectual arguments (and, of course, shouted threats and curses), several houses being fined heavily for trying to deceive the Wizengamot after they were _forced_ to take the inheritance tests and several million galleons more being levied for forbidden word fines, a vote was called and the motion was passed by a strong enough majority to prevent the decision being challenged, so every member of the listed families was permanently banned from both the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic. Their reactions when they realised that they would not be able to sell their Wizengamot seats or titles to try and recoup some of the fortunes they'd expended to obtain them because their seats had been taken from them by the Wizengamot and their titles had been made a part of what was permanently banned were priceless.

The only real value of titles in contemporary Magical Britain was their voting power in the Wizengamot, how they could used to garner benefits for your family. Therefore, once the titles had been rejected by the Wizengamot they were worthless, even the bragging rights of being able to call yourself a Baron or Earl were invalidated by the fact that most people in Magical Britain (and the rest of the Magical world too) quickly learned that those titles were longer worth the ink it would take to write them down, so anyone trying to use them would just be laughed at. The few individuals in the ejected families who disagreed with their families' official position on this matter strongly enough to renounce their families were soon rehired on their own merits as no-names.

This was a major blow for Bagnold's factions, because they had lost close to half of the votes they could rely on in the Wizengamot, and on top of that, they only had enough titles left to grab one or two at most of the Wizengamot seats that had been made vacant so the Council Alliance obtained most of them, further extending its majority. While some of the family pushed to get started on their plan to give the ordinary people of Magical Britain a say in how the country was run while they controlled most of the Wizengamot, calmer heads advocated waiting until things had settled down again and pointed out that that would give them time to include the recent achievements they'd made with the help of the ICW before they made a move.

Even the most outspoken had to concede that that advice made sense once they settled down, because they wanted to ensure that the Newbloods and ones with non-human blood were fairly represented in the new structure, including voting seats for the ambassadors of the non-magical human and other magical creature nations (by agreement the goblins represented the other magical beings with the voting seat while they held non-voting representative seats). They would not have had any chance of getting this organised any time soon if they hadn't been working on it in the Demi-Britain space for the past two years, and working with non-magical Britain and the other magical beings for centuries, but they were getting closer to their goal.

 **A/N: I realise that some will think that taking so long for a short chapter like this is too little, too late, but what can I say, life gets in the way so I decided that this would have to do for now in case anyone has actually been waiting. Sorry, but that's the way it is, at least they're heading towards the ultimate changes they're trying to make to Magical Britain.**


	12. Basilisks and Bigot Baiting

**Due to the error that Arjayess caught, I've swapped 'Creature' for 'Beast' in the new forbidden words as that should fit marginally better than 'Creature' in those circumstances. I dare say the traditionalist bigots would be more likely to go with 'Filthy Beast' than 'Creature' when they're ranting and raving anyway. It's just a quick and dirty patch, sorry, but I couldn't be arsed rewriting the whole thing to fix the mistake and hopefully it will work better that way.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.**

Aside from Sirius' grandfather passing so that Sirius became Lord Black and Harry became Heir Black, the rest of the school year was largely uneventful. Between school and their other training they were working their arses off though and Harry, Hermione and Luna kept growing and developing faster than the others because they put a lot more time and effort into their warrior training than anyone else. Another interesting development that came out of the warrior training was that trying so hard to generate the goblin magical bucklers had built up Jean and Roger's magical ability over time to the point where they were no longer a weak witch and wizard, their magic was actually comparable to moderately strong 'ordinary' witches and wizards now.

When they were tested at the start of their warrior training, the goblins had found that they both had quite enough latent magic to be able to control the magical goblin silver weapons and bucklers, so Balrog and Gamling set them to working on that, and also the magical bucklers because they didn't need to be able to use wizarding magic to generate the bucklers. Remus, Alastor and the professors had begun teaching them to use wizarding magic too and Gringott had enchanted goblin silver half sword/spears like the Founders' made to serve as both weapons and wands for them. Griselda also organised to test them was soon as they reached the requisite milestones in their wizarding education so that they'd get the necessary records to show that they were qualified when they 'came out'.

This created a situation where they could wind up the traditionalists because them gaining their magic and becoming qualified in the wizarding world meant that Richard could take up his titles as Baron Dagworth-Granger, Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Dagworth and Ancient Druid House of Granger. Hermione jumped at the chance to hand the Dagworth and Granger titles over to her father at Christmas after her parents had passed their OWLs and NEWTS, so they officially became Lord and Lady Dagworth-Granger. When the traditionalists tried trotting out the old wives' tales about 'Muggles stealing witches and wizards' magic', the family had fun pointing out that both Roger and Jean _had_ been recorded in the book of magical births, but when they turned eleven _someone_ had crossed their names off the lists for Hogwarts (even though children from established magical families with no more magic than them had attended), and they'd been obliviated of knowledge of magic.

Roger was shocked in his first Wizengamot session, because he realised that Harry, Hermione and the others _hadn't_ been joking when they said that the traditional so-called purebloods behaved just like the titled officers in the movie 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. That was when he understood why they were working so hard to change the Magical world, because it was doomed if those retarded tantrum throwing brats remained in charge.

* * *

Harry, Hermione and Luna were putting more effort into their warrior training than they were their school work at this point, because holding themselves back to a pace suitable for the others meant that it was no challenge for them. They were also learning goblin and elvan magic, studying other forms of magic that weren't covered at Hogwarts, starting the process for earning their masteries and completing their non-magical education as well though, so they were still stretching themselves. At the end of the school year, everyone in the Lords Class passed their Fourth year tests with outstanding results, and most of the family were quite a bit beyond that.

The study in Harry's Haven was almost as big as the living room, because it had been expanded to fit extra tables in for everyone to do their homework and such, and the floo mirrors, magical portraits and sword/spears, half sword/spears, axes, bucklers and armour for each house took up quite a bit of wall space. While 'proper' goblin warriors used magical bucklers, many goblins couldn't generate strong enough magical bucklers to use in battle, so metal bucklers were also used quite a bit (magical goblin silver for those who could get them, otherwise plain steel). The steel bucklers were fixed in size at about a foot across but the goblin silver ones could be shrunk down to six inches or expanded to eighteen inches across.

As the goblins knew that most humans couldn't generate the magical bucklers, when they created magical goblin silver weapons for the heads of the magical humans' houses before the Norman invasion, they also created the bucklers for them. They created the half-sword/spears, axes and bucklers for the heads of the Druid houses to help them protect their families, and added full sword/spears and at least chain mail armour for the heads of the Noble houses. Originally, only the House of Potter's bucklers, armour and weapons had received the same enchantments as the Founders', so that they were unbreakable and sharper and lighter to handle than than any normal armour or weapons, but since they started their warrior training the same enchantments had been cast over their other Most Ancient Houses' bucklers, armour and weapons.

Neville carried Helga Hufflepuff's enchanted half-sword/spear with him at all times in a disillusioned, magically expanded scabbard as they all did, but Helga's other weapons, buckler, armour and portrait were in Harry's Haven's study with the rest of the Founders'. As well as each Founders' weapons, buckler, suit of what had become known as 'almian-rivet' plate and chain mail armour made from enchanted goblin silver and portrait, Harry had added the weapons, bucklers and armour for the house of Potter, weapons, buckler and armour for the house of Peverell and axe and buckler for the house of Ifan (Remus, Dora and Alastor carried the Potter, Peverell and Ifan half-sword/spears) and his parents' and Potter Grandparents' and Great Grandparents' magical portraits.

Hermione added the magical portraits of her most significant ancestors from the houses of Dagworth and Granger and Luna added the weapons, buckler and armour that came to her when they eradicated the Noble and Most Ancient House of Macmillan and the title and everything else belonging to them was forfeited to her (she actually carried Salazar's half-sword/spear, while her father carried the Lovegood one and her mother carried the Cathbad one). The axes and bucklers (and sword/spears and armour for those houses that had become Noble before the Norman Conquest) of the Most Ancient Houses that the other girls had been made heir to were also kept in the study so that they could use the weapons in their training and to protect themselves.

* * *

It was thinking about this as he looked at the portraits inter-spaced with the weapons, bucklers and armour while the Hogwarts was emptying as the students headed home for the summer that reminded Harry that there was something else that they really needed to deal with as a matter of urgency. This was the fact that back before he went crazy, Salazar had created a basilisk to protect the students if Hogwarts was attacked. As far as they knew, that basilisk was still down in Salazar's Chamber of Secrets beneath Black Lake, but Hogwarts and Myrddin had told them that Tom Riddle had somehow found the Chamber of Secrets and corrupted the basilisk when he was at Hogwarts in the Forties (if Salazar didn't do it himself after he went crazy at the end of his life), making it attack students and ultimately killing a student, Myrtle Warren, in the incident that he framed Hagrid for. What this meant was that there was a most likely crazy and terribly lethal thousand year old basilisk that could probably get into Hogwarts if it ever left the Chamber of Secrets, so they needed to get rid of it before it harmed anyone else.

They needed Harry's parseltongue abilities to get into the chamber, but they were hoping that as Salazar's heir he would be able to control it so that they could relocate it somewhere that it could live out its life in peace. They knew that in the real world there wasn't much hope of controlling it though, so they'd be taking a big enough team of elite goblin warriors to deal with it if they had to (basilisks were almost impervious to magic, so they would need goblin skills and weapons to face it). Of course, even if they managed to convince the others to stay back because they were needed to keep their work to save the Magical world on track, there was no way of stopping Hermione and Luna as his betrothed or Remus, Alastor, Balrog and Gamling and Efa and Emyr as their champions from coming with them, so they had to spend more time arguing about what protections they'd agree to.

"Look, I know I can't stop you coming with me, but if you do you _have_ to wear the armour!"

"We do, do we? What about _you_? If we have to so do you!"

Harry nodded, as he knew that this would be their stance, luckily the Founders' and Potters' enchanted armour was far lighter and easier to move in than the other suits of goblin silver armour. "Yes, I will be wearing the armour too, and so will Uncle Remus and Uncle Alastor."

When they went to disagree he just stared them down until they capitulated. The blood adoption that enabled the champions' link to the family magic meant that Remus was accepted by the Potter weapons and armour, and Alastor was a close enough relation to the Hufflepuff bloodline that Helga's weapons and armour accepted him like Salazar's did Luna, if not quite as well. Balrog and Gamling had their own enchanted weapons and armour as the heirs to the Gringott family and Efa and Emyr were using more of the Potter armour and weapons. The rest of the goblin warriors who would be going with them would be equipped with magical goblin silver weapons and armour, but they wouldn't be at the same level, luckily their greater strength and skill should be enough to offset this disadvantage.

Once that was agreed, they had another problem, because neither Hogwarts or Salazar knew exactly where the entrance to the tunnels leading to the Chamber of Secrets was now. Salazar knew where it had been back in his day, but there had been so many changes and so much interference with Hogwarts that she didn't know where that chamber would be now. They were miffed at first, but soon shared Hermione's amusement when she laughed at them. "Why does the wizarding world have such a problem with logic? Who was killed when Riddle set the basilisk on the students in the Forties?"

Harry knew she was going somewhere with this but couldn't see it yet. "Myrtle Warren."

"Correct, and how many students' ghosts are there in the castle from this century?"

Myrddin chuckled as he got her point. " _One_ , the poor girl known as 'Moaning Myrtle' who inhabits the girls' bathroom down in the Dungeons."

She smirked at him as she nodded. "So who do you think Moaning Myrtle is then?"

Hermione let Harry get away without admonishing him for what he muttered under his breath as he finally got the point too, and he kicked himself for missing it until his nose was rubbed in it. "It would appear that Miss Warren has decided to remain here in the castle where she was killed."

She looked a little smug as she nodded at that, but he had to concede that she had the right to be a _little_ smug for working it out before the rest of them, so Harry hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

* * *

They would have looked quite the sight as they headed down to Myrtle's bathroom if anyone was there to see them, nearly three dozen figures covered from head to foot in gleaming goblin silver armour, carrying swords, spears and axes, and they were wearing sleeveless silk tabards in Slytherin colours over their armour in hope of convincing the basilisk that they were Slytherins. Few humans would have any idea what the height of the armoured goblins meant, that the fact that they were all over five and a half foot tall said that they had reached the highest level of goblin warriors by training hard and using the goblin warrior growth potions for decades to develop to that size. Most would have no idea that this was the first time in centuries that most of the goblins' warrior elite had been together like this either but master duellers and experienced Aurors and Hit Wizards would have recognised the ones in armour as dangerous from the way they walked and their awareness of their surroundings. They had another group going with them as well, to form a last line of defence at the entrance to the tunnels just in case things went terribly wrong and the basilisk got past the ones going into the Chamber of Secrets.

When they entered Myrtle's bathroom, Harry called out for her. Her first demanding question was why they were all wearing that silly armour but she giggled when Harry replied. "We have a job to do and we expect it to be a little dangerous, but where are my manners? Miss Warren, my name is Harry Potter…."

When he stopped at her giggle she said. "Oh everyone knows who _you_ are Harry, in fact most of the witches who come in here are trying to work out how to bag you and all your money…." She stopped to glare at Hermione and Luna, who had stepped up to stand on either side of him, and spat out. "Who are _they_?"

Harry sent a heartfelt 'Thank you!' to the girls over their link before he answered. "These lovely ladies are the reason that all those other witches are going to be disappointed Miss Warren, because they are my betrothed, may I have the honour of presenting Lady Hermione Granger, the future Lady Potter, and Lady Luna Lovegood, the future Lady Black."

As that had silenced her for the moment he continued. "We hate to bother you Miss Warren, but we have a problem that I believe only you can help us with. You see we need to get down to the Chamber of Secrets so that we can deal with the monster that killed you, but no-one knows where the entrance to the tunnels is any more. Lady Granger has pointed out that you would most likely be the best one to point us to where the entrance is, as it is quite likely you saw it as it was emerging from the tunnels…." He looked around and leant in to say, as if in confidence. "Hermione comes from the non-magical world like you and I did, but you know how simple logic like that escapes most people raised in the magical world..."

She giggled again as he moved back to continue in a more normal voice. "So we were hoping, is it isn't too upsetting for you of course, if you could tell us what actually happened when you died?"

"Ooh it was awful! I was hiding in here because that cow Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses, but I heard a boy's voice, he was talking to himself and making funny hissing sounds. I came out of the stall to tell him to get out because this was the _girls'_ bathroom and he shouldn't be in here, but the last thing I remember was seeing two enormous yellow eyes, and then I died!"

She started wailing then and Harry awkwardly tried to comfort her. Hermione looked over at Luna and shook her head (because he would have heard what they said over their link). That was their Harry, he did the impossible for breakfast and was changing the world, but one crying girl, even a girl _ghost_ , and he went to pieces!

Luna nodded and addressed Myrtle. "Myrtle, I'm sorry, I know that this is upsetting for you but we're trying to stop that monster killing anyone else, so it would really help us if you could tell us where you saw those big yellow eyes."

At first it didn't look as though Myrtle would go along, but then she nodded, pointing to some sinks at the other end of the bathroom. "It was somewhere over there."

They thanked her and headed over to the sinks, and after searching for a while, Harry found a snake scratched into the tap on the end sink. Nothing happened when he turned the tap, and Myrtle brightly added. "Oh that tap's never worked Harry." He nodded as he looked at the others and they all got ready in case something came out when he opened the entrance (if he could), then said " _Open!_ " in Parseltongue.

Just as he was about to ask "Well what do we try now?" there was a scraping, grinding noise as the sink and the section of the wall it was attached to started moving, speeding up as it broke free of the hold of the accumulated dust and water that had cemented it in place and sunk into the floor. The smell of stale water and decay that wafted out of the hole as the entrance was uncovered made them all step back and the adult witches and wizards cast air freshening charms. Both the hole that was uncovered, and the pipe that headed down from it at a forty five degree angle were easily seven or eight feet high so there was little question that this _was_ the primary entrance to the tunnels, but Hermione looked down the slimy pipe disappearing into the darkness and frowned at Harry.

"Well? Get to it!"

"Get to _what_?"

"Get to bringing up the stairs or whatever it was that Salazar used to go down there. Everything I've read about him said that he was very conscious of his image so I don't believe for a minute that he would have ever done anything so undignified as slide down a pipe like that, and I don't intend to either!"

Half of the people in the bathroom started snickering at that, and the goblins were laughing louder than the humans. Alastor snorted. "She's got you there laddie…." He stopped and looked down the pipe again, nodding thoughtfully. "I dare say she's right about the stairs too, so try that first."

Minerva broke in at that point. "No. I'd suggest that you scourgify that pipe first and _then_ call for stairs Harry, otherwise they'll be so slippery you'll be on your arse before you've gone a hundred yards."

Harry nodded, conceding her point and raised the spear in his hand. What they knew from the Founders' portraits and Myrddin was that Salazar hadn't been overly enamoured with the martial aspects of being made Baron Slytherin, but as Hermione said he _was_ very image conscious so he normally carried his half sword configured as a spear with a five foot long shaft and a dagger length blade, because it made a very impressive mage staff in that configuration. Knowing that he had spent a fair bit of time down in the Chamber of Secrets with the basilisk before he died, Harry was banking on the basilisk recognising Salazar's mage staff and accepting him as its master's heir because of that, anyway it meant that he had a powerful mage staff in his hand so he just used that to scour out the pipe.

Once the pipe had been blasted clean, he spoke in parseltongue again. " _Stairs come!_ "

Harry was just as surprised as anyone else (if not more) when stairs appeared out of the bottom of the pipe, grinding like the piece of wall covering the entrance had as it moved down, but he just looked at Hermione to see whether she was satisfied and she nodded with a smile, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then Luna joined them and they snuggled together while the others decided the order that they'd head down the pipe. The warriors knew what they were doing, so it wasn't long before the first of the goblins headed down, spears and axes resting on their shoulders so that they could be brought to bear quickly if anything attacked them. After a dozen of the goblin warriors had headed down the pipe, moving as quietly as usual, the daily fell run that made up part of their warrior training making them sure footed and confident that they'd be fit and ready to fight when they reached the bottom, Balrog, Alastor and Emyr stepped forward, signalling Harry, Hermione and Luna to follow them. Gamling, Remus and Efa fell in behind the three children and the rest of the goblin warriors brought up the rear.

* * *

Everyone kept quiet going down the pipe, communicating only with the goblins' hand signals (or over their mental links as Harry, Hermione and Luna, and to a lesser degree Balrog and Gamling and Efa and Emyr did), but nothing happened and they were all assembled in the tunnel at the bottom soon enough. Which direction to head in was easy enough to pick, because the tunnel floor obviously hadn't been disturbed in centuries on one side, but much of the dirt and debris had been pushed aside by some massive serpent on the other. Harry waved Salazar's spear again as he used a switching spell to replace the foul air of the tunnel with clean air from above ground before they headed out in the same order they'd come down the pipe. At least having all those bones pushed aside saved them having to watch their feet all the time to avoid stepping on them and making a noise.

They went a couple of kilometres before the goblins in front signalled everyone to stop, because they could see something up ahead. Hedwig was riding on Harry's shoulder, so she took wing to investigate what it was. Harry and the girls could feel her amusement when she sent back a message that it was only a cast off skin, and they understood why when the group reached the spot where she was perched on the skin. _Only_ a cast off skin? The bloody thing was well over twenty feet long! Even Alastor and the grizzled goblin warriors shuddered at the sight of the skin, because if it was still alive the basilisk would have to be bigger than the skin it had grown out of now.

The skin had been shed in the mouth of a side tunnel, none of them could feel anything up the tunnel so Hedwig went to investigate again, quickly returning to let them know that the tunnel had caved in centuries ago and was completely blocked. They went on a little happier due to the knowledge that there would be no danger coming from behind them at least.

Soon after that the tunnel opened up into a small chamber, with a pair of massive metal doors taking up much of the wall in front of them. Balrog nodded to Harry and he said " _Open!_ " in parseltongue again. The girls (and some of the goblins) shuddered at the all too lifelike motion of the silver snakes as they slid out of the way to unlock the door, then the two leaves of the door ground open. They were surprised to find that the air coming from the chamber was actually much cleaner than the air in the tunnel had been, but they ignored that for the moment as they used all of their senses to scry for any presence in the chamber in front of them, but none of them could detect anything.

The goblins examined the foot thick doors as they passed and confirmed that they were made from goblin silver, and that much goblin silver would be worth an absolute fortune! Not being able to detect any danger in the chamber made them no less cautious though so the goblins fanned out, investigating every nook and cranny while Hedwig took wing again to scout the chamber as well. From what they could determine, the chamber was as empty of life as their scans had indicated, so soon enough they were standing in front of the massive bust of Salazar on the wall at the far end of the chamber, which stretched all the way up to the ceiling thirty feet above. Harry and Hermione almost burst out laughing when Luna giggled and sent 'Do you think this is one of those over compensation things that the girls talk about Hermione?' over their link, but one advantage of speaking mind to mind was that you didn't have wait until you can control your physical reaction before you speak so Hermione shot back. 'I don't know Luna, it could be.'

From what Salazar's portrait had told them, the basilisk's lair was behind that bust and the entrance to it was revealed when the chin on Salazar's portrait moved down like the wall in Myrtle's bathroom. Everyone except for Harry, Luna and Alastor (because Luna and Alastor had the next closest links to the Slytherin bloodline) hid themselves behind the pillars and when they signalled that they were ready Harry said " _Open!_ " in parseltongue. The fact that the chamber had been hermetically sealed meant that there was no build-up of dust and water to interfere with its opening so the chin moved down smoothly with no more than a slight scraping sound.

As the entrance to the basilisk's lair was revealed they all reached out to detect what was in there, but this time they could tell that there was something alive in there, something powerful. Hermione passed Balrog's signal to continue to Harry over their link, because they weren't taking their eyes off the hole where the basilisk would be coming from, and Harry called out in parseltongue. " _As the_ _the true heir of Salazar Slytherin I command you to come to me Serpens Rex, faithful servant of Salazar!_ "

After a short delay, they heard a slithering sound coming from the opening, but they weren't prepared for the massive head that emerged from the hole so they almost shat themselves, Harry, Luna and Alastor especially because they were standing in front of the hole. When the basilisk had fully emerged from the hole they could see that it was seventy or eighty feet long, so that cast off skin must have been from a _long_ time ago.

* * *

Harry was glad to see that the beast _did_ recognise Salazar's spear, and sensed that it accepted him as its true master, but it dashed any hopes of this going well when it spoke. " _Who are you to call for me? Where is my new master?_ "

" _Who_ _is this_ _ **new**_ _master you speak of_ __Serpens Rex_? You are bound to serve the line of Salazar, your __**true**_ _master, and you have not been released from that! You have no right to choose who you serve_ _, you must serve me as Salazar's Heir_ _!_ "

He could sense its confusion, which gave him a niggling worry, but it argued with him.

" _ **No!** It is true that you are the __M_ _aster's heir, but you do not feel_ _the same_ _as he did,_ _you are different_ _!_ _My new master felt as the_ _M_ _aster did so I was right to serve him!…._ "

It suddenly stopped and sniffed the air, hissing. " _Elf! And goblin! You dare bring these creatures into the Master's_ _most_ _private chamber_ _after they killed the Mistress_ _?_ "

That was when what had been worrying Harry clicked, because he realised that this monster hadn't just been a pet or servant to Salazar, it was his fukn _familiar_! Salazar had obviously dragged his familiar down with him into the depths of insanity and then left it with that madness festering in its mind for the nine hundred years since his death, no wonder it had bonded with an insane monster like Tom Riddle when he found his way into the chamber and claimed to be Salazar's heir! But that wasn't the issue at the moment, no, the real issue was the fact that they currently had the biggest example that anyone had ever been heard of, of one of the deadliest creatures ever created, right in front of them and it was both totally insane and in a killing rage!

They had tried to prepare for this though and Remus quickly unfroze the roosters they brought with them, hexing them to make them start crowing like mad. Harry knew that Hermione would be taking him to task for the language he was spewing out in his mind and over their links about retarded fukn wizards writing any stupid shite they thought of down to try and make their crap look more impressive, because the basilisk's only reaction to the roosters' so-called 'fatal crowing' was to whip its head around and start to move towards the sound. He tossed Salazar's spear to Luna as he changed into his Mngwa form and leapt for the back of the basilisk's head as it began to head away from them, changing back and calling Godric's axe to him just before he reached it.

Harry spun the axe in his hands and expanded it to full size, starting his swing as his feet touched the back of the basilisk's head. He swung with all his might to drive the eighteen inch long spike on the rear of the axe through its skull and into its brain, then sent an overpowered blasting hex through the spike (because the axes worked as mage staffs as well) to explode the basilisk's brain.

Like dragons, it was primarily the basilisk's skin that made it effectively impervious to magic and most weapons, so once the skin was breached there was little to stay magic's effects. This meant that channelling a blasting hex through an overcharged magical artefact that was embedded in the creature's brain worked quite well, and most of what was left of the basilisk's brain sprayed out of its open mouth as its head jerked back in the beginnings of its death throws. Harry changed back into his mngwa form and leapt off the basilisk, getting away from the thrashing leviathan as quickly as he could. As soon as he was clear, he checked to confirm that Luna and Alastor had gotten clear of the basilisk too and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them safe and sound in their mngwa and bear dog animagus forms. His next thought was of course for Hermione, and after her he confirmed that the rest of them were all safe while the goblins scanned the basilisk's lair to ensure that there wasn't anything else lurking in there.

Knowing who would be giving him the biggest serve over attacking the basilisk like that, Harry first went to Luna to make sure that she was OK, and to have her with him for moral support when Hermione got to him. Of course Hermione hadn't missed what he was doing, but they heard her amused tone as she said 'Oh that's really brave Harry, getting Luna to protect you.' over their link, so he was hoping it wouldn't be too bad.

Once the hugs and kisses were out of the way, he jumped in to try and head off her rant. "I had to act Mione! Remus didn't know it was coming for him and even if he did manage to grab the axe in time, there was no way for him to take on that thing when it was coming at him head on, but with my mngwa form, I could get onto the back of its head where it couldn't get at me and I could channel my magic through the spike on Godric's axe once it was embedded in its brain. So I managed to deal with it without putting myself at that much risk."

Remus came up as he was saying that and tried to support him. "He's right Hermione, I would have been a goner if that bloody thing came around the pillar I was behind and caught me, and I couldn't have exploded its brain that way either because it's only you guys who can use the Founders' weapons as wands…. Mind you, I'd love to get my hands on the idiot who wrote that a cock's crowing was fatal to basilisks, from what I hear it was more like ringing a bell for dinner!"

Harry snorted, saying. "Yeah, I had that thought myself!" But he froze as he heard over the link. 'And don't think that I missed _that_ either! We'll be discussing the language you used when we're alone!' Luna just shook her head with a smile and hugged him.

Alastor could tell that there were two conversations going on here, the verbal one and the mind to mind discussion that the bond mates were having, so he tried to help Harry out as well. "He really was the only one who could have stopped the Basilisk like that lass. Young Luna here couldn't call an axe to her, and might not have had enough strength to drive the spike through yon monster's skull either. I couldn't call an axe to me either and I doubt that my bear dog form could have jumped onto the snake's head the way that Harry did. Even if I did get up there with an axe though, while I probably could have gotten the spike into its brain, like Remus said I couldn't have exploded its brain anyway so your laddie was the only one who could have defeated the thing like that, a lot of us would have been hurt or killed if he hadn't done what he did!"

Hermione was quiet as she took in what Alastor said, but she eventually nodded grudgingly, she wasn't happy to see Harry had put himself at risk like that but had to accept that it was the only way to save them all from injury.

* * *

Once they confirmed that there weren't any other basilisks or other dangerous monsters lurking anywhere in the chamber, Hedwig flashed away, returning with a large floo mirror that they expanded and stuck to one of the pillars before opening a connection to Gringotts. Gringott was the first one to come through and he stopped, stunned as he took in the size of the basilisk, turning to Harry when Balrog and Gamling told him how Harry had killed it. "I expect to get your memories of this before we leave today Harry, and everyone else's as well! The House of Potter will be much richer once this carcass has been rendered down and sold though, because basilisk parts are very much in demand and extremely expensive, and never has one of this size been told of before….."

He paused as Gamling whispered something to him and turned and looked at the entrance to the chamber, gasping in goblin. "Oilliphéist! They're pure goblin silver you say?" When Gamling nodded he shook his head. "If you let us take those doors away and melt them down to sell the goblin silver Harry, they would be worth even more than the beast's carcass, because the special ore that is needed to create goblin silver seems to be gone now, so goblin silver costs many times more than it did in the past…. There's enough in those doors to make even someone of your worth noticeably wealthier, quite aside from what you get from your basilisk."

Harry waved that aside for the moment as he and a number of the others popped back to Myrtle's bathroom to let Minerva and the others know that they were all OK, close the entrance to the tunnels and pop those regarded as family down to the chamber. Being made of stern stuff as they were wasn't enough to stop Minerva and Pomona screaming when they saw the basilisk, but to be fair even Sirius and Filius almost fainted when they saw that monster.

They had a hard time believing that the axe still embedded in the back of its skull was how it was killed, but understood when Hermione explained about how Harry had channelled a blasting curse through the spike to explode its brain in order to kill it. As she was doing this, Harry changed into his mngwa form and leapt onto the basilisk's back, changing back to stroll nonchalantly up to the head and take hold of the axe and release it. He stayed in human form on his return, using the fell running skills from his daily exercise as part of the warrior training to land lightly on his feet when he leapt off the basilisk.

Another floo mirror had been set up to bring the rest of the family down to see the basilisk and the chamber, and most reactions matched the first ones who were brought down. Harry didn't have any trouble admitting that he'd been pretty much shitting himself when he saw the size of the bloody thing, even more so when he realised that it had been Salazar's familiar and was as crazy and he'd been at the end, if not more so after being left alone with Salazar's last demented thoughts for nine hundred years.

The reaction to hearing what happened when Remus tried to use the supposedly 'fatal' rooster crowing to deal with the basilisk was a mixture of laughter and horror, and Jean, Emmeline, Andi, Minerva, Dora and most of the other women who had maternal feelings for Harry reacted much the same as Hermione had when they heard how he had jumped onto the basilisk's head to kill it, so Harry, Remus and Alastor had to repeat the arguments they'd used to deal with Hermione's ire.

While this was going on, the curse breakers called for Harry a few times to get him to open doors and the like with parseltongue once they'd confirmed that there weren't any curses on them (considering Salazar's paranoia, they were surprised that he'd apparently accepted the way the chamber was hidden, the fact that only a parseltongue could open the doors and the basilisk as being enough security to forego any additional curses, but by all indications he had). They'd also set up another floo mirror in the basilisk's lair to clear out the thousand and more cast off skins in there and move them to Gringotts. The older the skins were, the lower the value, but even the first couple of hundred skins that Salazar had stored in a chamber off the basilisk's lair which were down to less than ten feet long could still be used for luggage, boots and armour robes, and the fact that they came from Salazar Slytherin's basilisk that Harry Potter had fought and killed would drive their value up even further.

* * *

Everyone who went down to beard the basilisk in the Chamber was made to pose in front of the beast and Harry, the girls etc also had to pose with Arthur, Gringott, Minerva and the others for the obligatory publicity images before twenty odd lifting plates were pushed under the carcass. While the basilisk's magic resistant skin meant that magic couldn't be used to move the basilisk itself, it _could_ be used to move the lifting plates that the goblins used to shift large objects, so they used them to lift the carcass a few feet off the floor and carefully float it through the floo mirror. The cast off skins were being moved the same way.

Once most of the skins had been cleared out of the lair, the curse breakers made another discovery. There had been little of value in Salazar's vault at Gringotts when Harry accepted the title of Head of the House of Slytherin, mainly the deeds and earnings of the properties and businesses that the Slytherin family owned, plus the House Ring and a few other heirlooms and belongings. What they discovered once the piles of cast off skins were cleared away was that this was because Salazar had vaults built in the rear of the basilisk's lair, and most of his gold and treasure was in those vaults. Considering that even back then those goblin silver chamber doors must have cost a fortune, it was little surprise that the House of Slytherin went from moderately wealthy to fabulously wealthy almost overnight when those vaults were found.

With the politicking and exploring out of the way, they sat down to discuss what to do with the chamber doors and the chamber itself. Hermione, Neville and Minerva (as the other Founders' Heirs and Hogwarts' Headmistress) insisted that everything in the Chamber of Secrets was Salazar's personal property, so any and all money from anything being sold should go into the Slytherin vaults. They'd confirmed that they could use goblin or elvan magical transport to pop or floo in or out of the chamber, even with the doors closed, so access wasn't a problem, and testing had confirmed that the air, water etc of the magical environment and the strong wards securing the chamber were all perfectly maintained due to the energy from the ley lines that intersected at Hogwarts. This made the chamber itself quite a valuable resource, so Harry made agreements for the doors to be removed and the opening sealed up, then the deteriorating tunnels leading to the chamber to be collapsed so that it could only be accessed magically.

While they were going over what to remove and sell off, and how to make the chamber more pleasant for whatever future use they planned for it, Harry agreed to having the snake friezes and carven snake columns stripped out and replaced with plainer items, because Gringott said that many cultures around the world revered snakes so people would pay good money for snake artwork like this. Truth be told, Harry wouldn't have been too upset to see the bust of Salazar go as well, but it housed the main living quarters, potions labs, library, vaults and other chambers and this _was_ Salazar's chamber, so it was agreed to do no more than clean the bust inside and out and update the lighting etc.

* * *

By the time they returned to the Lords Tower, Harry was pretty much wiped out, but there was something that he wasn't going to put off. Hermione and Luna followed him into the study in the Haven and neither were surprised when he went straight up to Salazar's portrait and basically exploded. " _Why in the seven hells didn't you tell us that the basilisk was your familiar?_ "

If they hadn't just been forced to face that thing in the Chamber, Salazar's expression would have been hilarious. " _Familiar?_ What are you talking about boy, I never had a familiar!"

Hermione put her hand on Harry's arm to try and calm him, because while she could understand his being upset and frightened, destroying Salazar's portrait wouldn't help them. "My Lord Slytherin, can you tell us when you had your portrait painted, and how long before that you created your basilisk?"

He nodded at her musingly. "Ah. I believe I might see where you are going with this Lady Granger…. Let me see…. We all had our portraits done just after we were ennobled, I believe that that would have been sometime around a thousand and thirty, is that correct Helga?"

Helga's portrait nodded. "Yes Salazar, a thousand and twenty seven actually."

"Thank you Helga. As I recall it took me some time to successfully create a basilisk, and I believe that it was around a thousand and ten or so before I finally managed to hatch the one that survived and grew into Serpens Rex, so that would have been fifteen years or so before the portrait was created."

Hermione nodded. "Thank you Lord Slytherin. Now Harry and I bonded with our familiars when we were six and seven, would I be correct in assuming that this was rather younger than most?"

Rowena Ravenclaw gave a rather unladylike snort at that. "I'll say! Mind you it is _also_ rather unusual for a wizard and two witches to bond the way that you three have, let alone at that age, but enough of this polite dancing around unpleasant subjects, you three obviously need to be abed so just say it plain, what happened down there Granddaughter? I take it that Salazar's pet was as deranged as you feared it would be?"

Hermione looked at Harry, but he waved at her to continue because she was handling this better than he could at the moment.

She nodded as she took up the story again. "Yes, but the reason it was so deranged was that it wasn't a pet Grandmother, it was his familiar! The things that it was saying it could only have known if it were linked to Lord Slytherin's mind at the end after he went mad with grief over Lady Slytherin's death. This fact put Harry, Luna and Baron Moody in a position of considerable risk when they faced the basilisk and this is why Harry is so upset. The basilisk accepted Harry as Lord Slytherin's true heir, but _not_ as its master, because he did not share the mindset of its master after he went crazy at the end. Instead it said that its _new_ master, Tom Riddle who we told you about, was its rightful master now. At that point it smelt the elves and goblins with us and became enraged that we would bring the creatures that Lord Slytherin believed to be responsible for Lady Slytherin's death into its master's secret chamber, so Baron Lupin attempted to kill it with the rooster's crowing as the texts said that this was fatal to it. As Baron Lupin said, the only effect the crowing had was that of ringing a dinner bell because the basilisk immediately turned and began to head for the noise. Harry changed into his mungwa form and leapt onto the back of its head, changing back and calling Lord Gryffindor's axe to him as he reached it so that he could drive the spike on the rear of the axe through its skull and then used that to pass a blasting curse right into its brain. Since then we've been making arrangements for the chamber to be cleaned out and we've only just gotten away. That was why Harry was so upset about going into the chamber without the knowledge that it was Lord Slytherin's familiar, because that ignorance almost killed all of us! This of course is why I was trying to ascertain whether Lord Slytherin could have made a familiar bond with his basilisk at some time after his portrait was painted."

The portraits were stunned into silence when she finished, but Salazar's portrait found his voice first. "I apologise Grandson, I did not understand why you were speaking to me in that manner and to my shame I reacted without asking why. Yes, Lady Granger is correct, Serpens Rex must have become my familiar at some time after my portrait was created as I had no knowledge of it. But one part of your lady's story confuses me…. How could you leap onto the back of the basilisk's head and why did you not just cut its head off with your axe, or your sword for that matter?"

Luna spoke up while Harry snorted. "Did we not mention that your basilisk was at least five and twenty yards long and two yards across?"

Harry had to spend a few minutes reassuring his parents and grandparents that he was alright after that, but the portraits' shock and disbelief at the size of the basilisk meant that it quicker and simpler to just extract the memories of the event and play them on the goblin pensieve. When the memories had finished playing the Potters, Godric and Salazar all proclaimed themselves quite proud to be known as Harry's ancestors, because he had showed himself to be a true noble, warrior and druid.

With that they bid the Founders and their ancestors good night and crawled off to bed.


End file.
